As more state and local governments look to protect data privacy, a couple of industry experts point out some of the challenges associated with these types of policies.
To fight back against cyber threats, state and local governments have started to implement tighter privacy regulations. But is this trend a good thing? Or do stricter rules present more challenges than they do solutions?
According to Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, one of the main issues with stricter privacy regulations is having no centralized rules for states to follow.
“Probably the biggest problem is states setting up a set of contradictory overlapping rules across the country,” Castro said. “This creates a serious cost on organizations and businesses. They can abide by 50 state privacy laws, but there could be different regulations across local jurisdictions.”
Read full story at GOVTECH…
As more state and local governments look to protect data privacy, a couple of industry experts point out some of the challenges associated with these types of policies.
To fight back against cyber threats, state and local governments have started to implement tighter privacy regulations. But is this trend a good thing? Or do stricter rules present more challenges than they do solutions?
According to Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, one of the main issues with stricter privacy regulations is having no centralized rules for states to follow.
“Probably the biggest problem is states setting up a set of contradictory overlapping rules across the country,” Castro said. “This creates a serious cost on organizations and businesses. They can abide by 50 state privacy laws, but there could be different regulations across local jurisdictions.”
Read full story at GOVTECH…
first published week of: 10/11/2021
Over the next five years, smart cities will emphasize digital justice, community trust and data-led decisions, city leaders say.
Smart streetlights have become almost ubiquitous within smart cities.
The technology is an example of a quintessential smart city project that can potentially address community challenges, Philadelphia Smart City Director Emily Yates said in response to a Smart Cities Dive survey conducted this fall about the smart cities movement.
In Cleveland, officials are working to convert 61,000 streetlights into a smart network. Chicago’s Department of Transportation has plans to use its streetlights to retrieve data on light outages and circuit failures. And Philadelphia is exploring streetlights as a means to expand access to public WiFi and monitor air quality.
Poor air quality is a major issue that disproportionately affects communities of color. Black residents are 75% more likely than white residents to live near traffic and pollution. Such data would help Philadelphia make more informed decisions on projects and investments that may impact air quality, Yates said.
Read full story at Smart Cities Dive…
first published week of: 11/22/2021
Facebook and Google want to keep playing three roles: essential infrastructure, publisher, and targeted-ad mogul. That’s impossible.
Big Tech companies are facing an existential crisis, but they are doing everything they can to resist it and keep things just as they are. Facebook and Google, in particular, want to keep playing three roles: essential infrastructure, publisher, and targeted-ad mogul. They want to be perceived as neutral platforms, while also being perceived as civically responsible, while also maximizing surveillance and the targeting of ads. That’s impossible—so the government has to force them to choose a new business model; or, rather, it has to choose for them.
Facebook and Google occupy an unprecedented political role. The closest we’ve come in America is the telegraph monopoly in the late 19th century, when the Associated Press and Western Union joined forces to control both news and the network through which it traveled. Facebook and Google are each like that monopoly, but combined with the surveillance regimes of authoritarian states, and the addiction business model of cigarettes. Not only do they control discourse, surveil citizens, and make money from incentivizing paranoia, hatred, and lies; they also make money by keeping the public addicted to their services.
Read full story at The Atlantic…
first published week of: 03/08/2021
The Defense Department should move beyond a traditional, siloed approach to network monitoring in favor of a more omniscient view of its infrastructure.
The addition of Amazon Web Services and VMware to the Defense Department’s milCloud 2.0 contract will make it easier for agencies to transition applications and services to the cloud.
However, the acceleration of this effort may bring its own challenges. MilCloud is a substantial operation, with more than 1,200 virtual servers as of early 2021. The addition of AWS and VMware will allow agencies to add to this number, making an already complex service even more challenging to manage.
How can agencies ensure all their applications, regardless of where they reside, will work seamlessly, securely and reliably across the DOD’s massive network footprint? This can only be achieved by moving beyond a traditional, siloed approach to network monitoring in favor of complete observability across all aspects of the DOD infrastructure.
Read full story at FedTech…
first published week of: 09/20/2021
There is no single solution that can enable agencies to deploy digital services, but IT leaders and industry analysts say a clear strategy is needed.
The ideal vision of government services many IT leaders are moving toward is a digital one, in which residents have a single identity to access government services, which are intelligently linked.
Agencies would know that a resident uses multiple government services and would be able to offer more tailored services based on that data, or there would be a single portal residents could access that covers requirements and forms from multiple agencies. All of this would be mobile-friendly and not tied to paper-based processes.
Many state and local governments have used the coronavirus pandemic to expand their use of digital services, and many more want to. The technology needed to enable these services largely leverages cloud resources but is varied and includes everything from tools to connect application programming interfaces to database technologies and analytics.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 07/05/2021
Security concerns, workforce skills gaps and inflexible legacy networks are inhibiting innovation, according to a recent survey.
The Biden administration is convening CIOs from across the federal government to reassess key priorities around IT modernization, according to Federal CIO Clare Martorana. The Federal CIO Council, she said in mid-May, is in discussions and its work could result in an update to the Trump administration’s IT modernization plan or a new document. No matter what, it seems likely there will be a new vision coming on what it means for the federal government to deliver modern digital government services. “We’re all trying to solve the same problems; we all understand what the risks are and the opportunities for us to both travel together as an enterprise but, also, uniquely look at each agency’s maturity level,” Martorana said during an Association for Federal Information Resources Management event, according to Nextgov. “But we are working together.”
Read full story at FedTech…
first published week of: 06/21/2021
Two years after a damning cybersecurity report, auditors find little has improved.
Cybersecurity at eight federal agencies is so poor that four of them earned grades of D, three got Cs, and only one received a B in a report issued Tuesday by a US Senate Committee.
“It is clear that the data entrusted to these eight key agencies remains at risk,” the 47-page report stated. “As hackers, both state-sponsored and otherwise, become increasingly sophisticated and persistent, Congress and the executive branch cannot continue to allow PII and national security secrets to remain vulnerable.”
The report, issued by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, comes two years after a separate report found systemic failures by the same eight federal agencies in complying with federal cybersecurity standards. The earlier report found that during the decade spanning 2008 to 2018, the agencies failed to properly protect personally identifiable information, maintain a list of all hardware and software used on agency networks, and install vendor-supplied security patches in a timely manner.
Read full story at arsTechnica…
first published week of: 08/09/2021
Cybersecurity workers could get paid as much as the vice president.
The US Department of Homeland Security, a key cybersecurity agency, has just announced a new system that will help it recruit, develop and retrain cybersecurity pros in the federal government.
The DHS's new recruitment system, dubbed the Cybersecurity Talent Management System (CTMS), launches amid a tight labor market for cybersecurity professionals who are in extremely high demand and can therefore command big salaries.
DHS is just one federal department, but it plays a special role in responding to major cyberattacks on US critical infrastructure. It hopes the new system will help it hunt for and can keep talent for mission critical-critical roles, with the aim of hiring 150 priority roles across 2022.
Read full story at ZDNet…
first published week of: 11/22/2021
A different level of planning and perspective is needed to migrate agencies with minimal disruption.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed how state and local governments do business; it has accelerated their need to move to cloud computing. The unseen reality of many government agencies operating in exile has shown the limitations of on-premises servers and data storage.
By providing software and Infrastructure as a Service, the cloud offers regular updates, transparent maintenance, and a high level of security. Technological environments, such as Microsoft’s Office 365 Government Computing Cloud, provide features and enhancements tailored for public agency users.
However, migrating state, county and municipal departments and their users to the cloud presents unique challenges compared with private sector transitions. Here are some tips for designing and implementing a successful governmental migration.
Read full story at StateTerch…
first published week of: 08/09/2021
The company will also label accounts of state-backed media organizations.
Twitter is bringing its labels for government accounts and state-affiliated media organizations to more countries. The company first introduced the labels in August, but initially they were only applied to accounts from the US, UK, Russia, China and France. Twitter now says it will expand the effort to cover accounts based in Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Read full story at engadget…
first published week of: 02/15/2021