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Archived Government Notes
Published in 2020
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How Much Will State and Local Governments Automate?
by ranjani krishnamurthy
The pandemic is pushing government agencies to consider automation as they face budget constraints. Automation is helping government do more with less.
For a few years now, state and local governments have been pursuing robotic process automation (RPA) as a way to automate processes that are business-rule-driven, occur in high volume and are repeatable. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, automation has become a growing need with our customers, to help increase and boost productivity in a new remote work environment or with fewer coworkers. This trend of automation in government is accelerating.
A recent survey of public sector IT leaders found that at the state and local level, the percentage of respondents who had automation as one of their top three priorities jumped to 35 percent after the pandemic struck, up from 23 percent.
The economic toll of the pandemic is one of the key factors in pushing IT leaders to embrace automation. State and local governments are facing looming budget cuts as they see rising unemployment and healthcare costs amid plunging sales, property and income taxes. The National Governors Associat
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 11/16/2020
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How Public Agencies Can Guard Against a New Wave of Phishing Attacks
by phil goldstein
In addition to keeping vital citizen services running and ensuring employees can safely and productively work remotely, state and local CIOs and CISOs have another IT concern to deal with amid the coronavirus pandemic: cybercriminals.
The flood of information in the news media and from government officials about the response to the coronavirus is opening up opportunities for malicious actors to target public sector agencies with phishing and ransomware attacks.
As Wired reports, “coronavirus phishing scams started circulating in January, preying on fear and confusion about the virus — and they’ve only proliferated since.”
The fraudsters are using phishing attacks tied to language around the pandemic to entice users to click on malicious links. Washington State CISO Vinod Brahmapuram said in a recent blog post that the pandemic “is being used by bad actors to play on our underlying fears, including using phishing emails that claim to have information about virus infections in our surrounding area — if users click on a link or an attachment.”
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 05/18/2020
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How State and Local Government IT Leaders View IT Investments
by phil goldstein
To stay nimble and provide robust digital services, IT leaders need to think carefully about investment plans.
Across the country, state and local government agencies are the organizations closest to citizens and their concerns. That means such agencies and their leaders are also the ones whose digital services and technology most directly affect the lives of the people they serve.
In these turbulent times, public health and safety agencies are facing unprecedented demands and strains, as are state unemployment offices, which have turned to the cloud to help process historically large numbers of unemployment insurance claims.
Many state and local government agencies face staffing shortages, legacy systems and looming potential budget cuts.
However, as they shifted to massive telework deployments amid the coronavirus pandemic, state and local agencies also found that they are more agile than many might have supposed. They are seeing value in delivering digital services at a time when most agencies, and people in general, have limited in-person interactions. This is critical, as citizens increasingly expect consumer-grade accessibility and modern functionality from government apps and websites.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 08/17/2020
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How States Should Think About Cyberinsurance
by Kevin Cucuel
Proposed legislation in California should have state IT leaders and policymakers considering the complicated factors involved in cyberinsurance.
State governments continue to be hit with large-scale cyberattacks, such as the distributed denial-of-service attack in late May that targeted Minnesota’s information systems and networks and the ransomware attack that hit Louisiana last November.
Recently, a state lawmaker in California proposed legislation that sought to put in place new protections for critical state data by mandating the adoption of cyberinsurance by contractors that have access to it.
The bill, AB 2320, was introduced in February by assembly member Edwin Chau. It would require cyberinsurance coverage if a contractor received or was given access to records that contain personal information protected under the state’s Information Practices Act, according to bill text. That act, passed in 1977, regulates how California agencies collect, manage and send out personally identifiable information on residents — including names, Social Security numbers, home addresses and medical and employment history.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 07/06/2020
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How Tech Helps Firefighters Battle Blazes in Cities and the Countryside
by Bob Morrow
Technology can help fire departments gain situational awareness when fighting fires in buildings, and camera networks can aid wildfire response.
Fire departments face a range of challenges, in both urban and rural environments. With summer in full swing, the U.S. wildfire season is now upon us, and state and local fire departments will be increasing their efforts to combat wildfires. Meanwhile, city fire departments may need to respond to fires in large, complex buildings.
In both settings, technology is increasingly seen as an asset to firefighters.
Building intelligence data, can provide city fire departments with more information to help them develop battle plans for fighting fires in urban buildings. In the Western U.S., a system of networked cameras has given fire departments the ability to get a read on wildfires and scale resources appropriately to fight them.
These technologies are still evolving, but it is clear that fire departments can avail themselves of new resources to become more efficient in how they accomplish their missions.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 08/10/2020
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How to Protect Remote Workers from Phishing and Identity Attacks
by jen miller
As state and local governments continue to support to remote work for state employees, anti-phishing tools and solutions can help protect them from attacks.
As government workers shifted en masse to working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, phishing attacks have followed, making anti-phishing tools and protections more important now than ever.
“There’s a new opportunity that’s come along with teleworking,” says Shannon Tufts, associate professor of public law and government and director of the Center for Public Technology at the University of North Carolina School of Government.
She’s also a member of the North Carolina Local Government Information Systems Association. “When COVID-19 hit, we didn’t have teleworking policies in place in most of our governments,” she said.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 09/21/2020
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How to Secure Citywide Wi-Fi Networks
by jen miller
Wi-Fi security protocols for smart cities need to guard against rogue Wi-Fi networks and ensure strong encryption.
Wi-Fi access and citywide Wi-Fi networks are critical assets to smart cities and towns around the country.
However, that network availability comes at a cost, as public Wi-Fi networks are vulnerable to cyberattacks. Cybersecurity firm Norton calls free public Wi-Fi a “hacker’s playground for stealing personal information.” It doesn’t matter whether that free Wi-Fi is provided by the local Starbucks or city hall: They’re all hacker targets.
But a combination of strong encryption and implementation can make big differences in how cities keep their citizens and visitors safe for when they use public Wi-Fi networks.
“Even with weak encryption, you have to apply resources to break it,” says Ted Wagner, vice president and CISO of SAP NS2, a cybersecurity subsidiary of SAP. “A lot of time, cities get in trouble with poor implementation and configuration.”
Public-private partnerships can also help cities harness the power and expertise of tech companies to do the heavy lifting for them — and cut down on costs.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 01/06/2020
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India Needs to Get Over ‘National Security’ Myth, Revamp Remote Sensing Policies
by Ashok G.V. & Prateep Basu
In the challenging time of a COVID-19 outbreak, satellite monitoring has been playing a pivotal role in curbing the spread of the infection, mainly by helping identifying risk zones and facilitating quick response. However, there remains a huge potential to use Earth-observation (EO) data to shed new light on societal and economic changes currently taking place.
While these areas of application need to be explored, restrictions imposed on sharing of EO data also need to be worked on. India has been facing the brunt of such restrictions for a long time. However, the current government is thankfully analysing things in a new light. It thus seems safe to assume that the COVID-19 pandemic is serving as an eye opener for better remote sensing policies in India.
The spate of reforms announced by the Indian government designed to create and nurture private enterprises in the field of space exploration, satellite communications regulations and remote-sensing has not only inspired hope for countless space entrepreneurs but has the potential to transform the delivery of social dividends by EO and remote-sensing technologies.
Read full story at The Wire Science…
first published week of: 07/06/2020
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Is AI Biased? According to the U.S. Air Force/MIT AI Accelerator’s Director of Operations, It Is
by Heidi Bullman
The introduction of any disruptive technology creates all manner of questions, and it’s no different as federal agencies begin to adopt artificial intelligence (AI). Some misconceptions about AI include the ideas that it will replace all human jobs, create a dystopian world run by robots and also, that AI is unbiased.
A report commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States, explains that 45 percent of agencies have implemented AI and machine learning solutions. Most of these are in the initial stages of planning and piloting much like the U.S. Air Force’s RPA Training Next, an AI-infused pilot training program. For the 33 percent of agencies whose strategies are fully deployed, they’ve seen myriad benefits in areas of public health and safety as well as environmental protection. However, the key to reaping these benefits starts with not only knowing how to use or implement AI but also understanding the common misconceptions that surround it.
Read full story at Government Technology Insider …
first published week of: 07/20/2020
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Kansas City Launches Open Streets Permitting
by Maggie Green
Using a collaborative, fast-paced development process, the city’s public works created a way for residents to open up neighborhood streets for safe and healthy exercising while maintaining social distancing
Like many other communities, the city of Kansas City, Mo., has faced significant challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 24, 2020, Kansas City entered into a stay-at-home order that required city staff to work remotely through an emergency telecommuting program, institute social distancing requirements, close down operations of non-essential businesses and even implement rules around outdoor activities such as the closing of dog parks and playgrounds, while keeping public health and safety at the forefront of every decision.
The city took note of how other cities experimented with creating bicycle and pedestrian-only thoroughfares, quick-build micromobility projects, and launching various open street initiatives to build more space so people could get outside and exercise while maintaining safe social distancing. Thanks to early conversations with community organizations and local advocates, city staff had several ideas for starting a similar program and knew a multifaceted and flexible approach would be most successful.
Read full story at GovTech…
first published week of: 06/01/2020