The CIA looks to commercial technologies to fuel innovation

A historically tumultuous year for federal employees didn’t dim the public’s pre-shutdown view of government services, according to a new survey that largely credited tech adoption for the positive perceptions. The 2025 American Customer Satisfaction Index Federal Government Study, released Tuesday, found citizen satisfaction with federal government services at a 19-year high with a score of 70.4 on a 0-to-100 scale, a 1% jump from 2024. The survey of 6,914 randomly chosen respondents was conducted before the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, but ACSI’s director of research emeritus emphasized that the results still “reflect real momentum in improving how citizens experience federal services.” Forrest Morgeson, an associate professor of marketing at Michigan State in addition to his role at ACSI, said that the introduction of AI is making a large impact, and such advancement “signal a future where government services can be more responsive and accessible to all.” Many of the highest-ranking federal agencies in customer satisfaction were lauded for their implementation of technologies, including USDA, the State Department and the Small Business Administration.

The National Institutes of Health didn’t ensure that the entity housing personal health information of over 1 million people — including biosamples — implemented proper cybersecurity protocols, according to an internal watchdog. In a report publicly released Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General made five recommendations for the security of the All of Us program — a database of diverse health information from 1 million participants that’s meant to aid research — after finding weaknesses. According to the report, while the award recipient operating the program’s Data and Research Center implemented some cybersecurity measures, NIH failed to ensure other controls were addressed. The report found that NIH didn’t ensure that the awardee, which wasn’t identified, appropriately limited access to the program’s data and didn’t communicate national security concerns related to maintaining genomic data — or data relating to DNA. It also failed to ensure that weaknesses in security and privacy were fixed within a timeline outlined in federal requirements. The audit was initially conducted by the inspector general due to the threats that cyberattacks and the potential exposure of sensitive information can pose to the agency’s programs. The watchdog’s objective was to scrutinize the access, security and privacy controls of the program.

Also in this episode: HPE Networking Chief AI Officer Bob Friday joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on how agencies can leverage cloud and AI to build more automated, secure and mission-ready networks. This segment was sponsored by HPE.