The key to organizing government data for faster decision-making

The Federal Data Strategy provides agency officials a framework to get more from their data. But agencies will need robust integration tools to master, not just manage, that information, say experts in a new report.

That includes automated tools to fully identify and catalog government data, as part of a data management strategy, so that agency and program leaders have greater assurance about the quality of the information they rely on to make decisions.

This challenge has been strikingly clear as the nation continues to adjust to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, says Michael Anderson, chief strategist for public sector with Informatica.

“When you look at all the predictions, all the analytics going into decisions on whether to shut down [businesses], when and for how long, it all depends on having clean, timely data, run through a decision model or an AI tool. If an organization is not set up and prepared to do that before a crisis hits, they’ll run into some of the problems many are having now,” he explains in a new report, produced by FedScoop and underwritten by Informatica.

While the government’s continuing migration to cloud services has given many agencies newfound capabilities, officials are still finding it difficult to locate, share and analyze reliable data quickly in order to make critical decisions affecting their constituents, says the report.

Cloud experts like Susie Adams, chief technology officer at Microsoft Federal, have seen how widely-distributed pools of information make it challenging for federal agencies to assemble their data in order to migrate workloads to the cloud.

She shares in the report how the need to find and collect datasets hinders the ability of agencies to take fuller advantage of high-powered cloud data analytic tools.

“When agencies start to investigate big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics technologies to analyze very large data sets, one of the biggest challenges agencies have is that the datasets are distributed and stored in multiple disparate locations,” says Adams.

The report highlights two foundational competencies agencies need to establish in order to master their data.

The first, and most important, part of an overall data management program is having data governance in place. This helps an agency to establish the ground rules for defining data and determining systems requirements and processes to ensure data quality. A key requirement for data governance, says Anderson, includes having comprehensive data glossaries that standardize the formatting and meaning of data.

The second foundational component is having a robust and automated cataloging tool to properly identify, tag and process your data at scale, says Adams.

“Once your data has been properly cataloged, getting it migrated and then standing it up in the cloud, can be pretty straightforward,” Adams shares.

Anderson compares the data cataloguing challenge to finding a resource at the Library of Congress. “if you don’t catalog the books in a comprehensive, [automated] way — that takes advantage of embedded artificial intelligence and that will help you put in a data query and identify related datasets — you’ll likely overlook all kinds of meaningful information,” he says in the report.

“One of the reasons all of the leading cloud providers, including Microsoft, work with Informatica is the comprehensive array data management tools that Informatica offers. Informatica’s experience working with large government enterprises for over two decades has also helped the company keep innovating,” says the report.

No fewer than five of Informatica’s enterprise management solutions are recognized as leaders in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Reports.

Read more about data management tools that help agency leaders master data.

This article was produced by FedScoop and sponsored by Informatica.

CIO Council report recommends improvements to federal IT hiring

The need to recruit and hire new IT personnel is the most pressing issue concerning the future of the federal IT workforce, particularly as agencies accelerate modernization and adoption of emerging technologies, according to a new report from the Federal CIO Council.

It’s no secret: More than 80% of the federal IT workforce is older than 40, per federal data cited in the report. Of the remaining population, just over 3% is younger than 30, and agencies continue to struggle to attract and hire younger IT talent to fill in this gap.

The “Future of the Federal IT Workforce Update” report has several recommendations for how federal IT hiring can be improved to attract the next generation of tech talent. Namely, it points to “creating common competency-based position descriptions; recruiting through commercial platforms, job fairs, and hackathons; using a [subject matter expert]-based assessment process; and leveraging direct hiring authorities.”

These findings are based on CIO Council interviews with two dozen CIOs, chief human capital officers, agency IT personnel, industry executives and others. The report is a followup to the 2017 State of Federal Information Technology, issued under then-Federal CIO Tony Scott. A similar study published by FedScoop and WorkScoop last December echos the need to hire, retain and reskill IT talent.

“Federal agencies need to more quickly and easily recruit and hire adaptable IT professionals with a breadth and depth of competencies in order to take on the technological challenges of tomorrow,” the CIO Council report says. “This can only be accomplished by identifying and adopting best practices that have been developed across Government and the private sector. … Top agency officials, IT practitioners, and industry leaders all agree that the Government will only meet future IT workforce needs by enacting a more holistic, enterprise-wide approach to reforming the competitive hiring process.”

Perhaps the biggest barrier to hiring the future federal IT workforce is the existing federal hiring system itself, the report suggests. Average time-to-hire in the federal government is more than 100 days, versus less than a quarter of that time in the private sector. And very rarely do competitive job announcements lead to federal hires because they’re lengthy, complex and arcane, the report says. And worst of all, the effort to go through that system typically results in a lower salary job with low mobility compared to the private sector.

“The required time investment by IT job seekers and compensation structure are the most significant barriers to Federal recruiting, and that structure limits career mobility,” says the report.

The report’s top recommendation is to create a comprehensive special pay system for IT jobs across government. It cites special hiring authorities that have worked for some agencies, but says “the Federal Government should take a comprehensive approach to modernizing compensation and promotion to better compete with the private sector.”

The council also emphasizes the need to pair IT experts alongside any HR professionals making hiring decisions, as proven successful in a recent U.S. Digital Service pilot. On top of this, the federal government should expand its hiring efforts to more commercial, conventional avenues like recruiting platforms, job fairs and hackathons to attract the best talent, rather than relying on USAJobs.gov.

The report features a number of other recommendations focused around the entire federal IT workforce life cycle, which also includes retaining, training and reskilling, augmenting and measuring tech talent in addition to hiring. Each of those areas is affected by five drivers: innovation, mobility, cybersecurity, agility and collaboration.

“The Federal Government is striving to adapt to the rapid pace of modern technological change, with initiatives such as IT infrastructure modernization, cyber threat mitigation, and artificial intelligence all being elevated in both policy and implementation,” says the report. “As such, it is critical that Federal IT workers are able to support, manage, and identify risks in new technologies across Government, enabling mission-driven delivery of effective and efficient services to the public.”

Pandemic could worsen 2020 census IT, cybersecurity challenges

The coronavirus pandemic may exacerbate IT and cybersecurity challenges the 2020 census faces, requiring even greater attention to technical challenges as the Census Bureau looks to complete the survey on a new timeline, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.

After suspending all field operations until June 1 and extending data collection from nonresponse follow-ups (NRFUs) from July 31 to Oct. 31, data quality is a concern for the Census Bureau.

The bureau restarted select operations at 211 area census offices but requested statutory relief on deadlines for delivering data to the president to apportion House seats, as well as to the states to redistrict elections.

“[T]he coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) national emergency forced the bureau to make major and unprecedented adjustments to its plans,” reads GAO‘s third update, following a three-month audit. “The delays to key operations could adversely impact downstream operations, undermine the overall quality of the count, and escalate census costs.”

As of June, 21 of GAO’s 112 census recommendations made during the last decade remain unimplemented by the bureau. Challenges with new innovations and IT systems, in particular, earned the census a spot on GAO’s High-Risk List beginning in 2017.

The bureau predicted the census self-response rate by internet, phone and mail would be 60.5% by June 10 — it was at 60.1% as of May 25. Self response began March 12.

Operations span 52 systems, not all of which have been tested and deployed. On April 9, the systems supporting NRFUs launched, but six of 16 operational deliveries remain.

Michael Thieme, assistant director for decennial census programs, systems and contracts,  expressed concern to GAO about the availability of enumerator handheld devices and IT contractor staff for system testing post-pandemic.

“[I]f the Bureau hires more enumerators than originally planned due to, among other reasons, a higher-than-expected workload, there may be a shortage of enumerator handheld devices,” reads the report. “To reduce this risk, the official stated that the Bureau ordered 125,000 additional enumerator handheld devices (for a total of approximately 559,000 devices).”

Additional performance and scalability testing is needed to ensure more devices won’t cause system performance issues, Thieme added.

Timeframes for reducing the number of servers, storage capacity and software licenses contractors are providing have yet to be reassessed.

Work also remains to address cybersecurity weaknesses. At the end of April, 234 high- and very high-risk plans of actions and milestones (POA&Ms) remained open. POA&Ms are required after a full security assessment uncovers vulnerabilities.

The bureau continues to combat disinformation and misinformation about the census circulating online and on social media.

“[I]n March 2020, in response to misinformation, the Bureau issued a statement on its website to clarify that an individual’s 2020 Census response could not be used to impact eligibility for any government benefits, including any potential stimulus payments,” reads the report.

Tech and social media companies coordinate such efforts with the bureau on a weekly basis.

The bureau will have less time to ensure data quality after it’s collected by removing duplicate responses, ensuring information is complete and formatting data files to generate results.

“In April the Bureau stood up a 2020 Data Quality Executive Governance Group to provide guidance on data quality efforts and to facilitate the work of various new and ongoing working groups related to data quality,” reads the report.

Army working to team up its autonomous systems across domains with AI

Army Futures Command is working to string “teammates” of multiple unmanned systems together with artificial intelligence-enabled data sharing, the command’s top general, John “Mike” Murray, said Wednesday.

Murray’s comments on the work being done by the command’s AI Task Force come as it is starting to see more funding for its projects. Stationed at Carnegie Mellon University, the task force has been working on teaming manned/unmanned systems, but linking multiple unmanned systems together has been discussed less publicly.

Pairing multiple unmanned systems together “is key,” the general said. The goal is to get systems like flying drones and autonomous ground vehicles “talking to each other,” he added during a virtual event with Association of United States Army.

Teaming is a part of the Army’s push into multi-domain operations, where forces are coordinated across domains like air, land, sea, cyber and space to create tactical advantages on the battlefield, Murray said.

The Army’s top officer, Gen. James McConville, previously told Congress the service is “aggressively pursuing” maned/unmanned teamed systems and that pairing multi-domain autonomous systems was also in the works to “better utilize [their] capabilities.” Barriers to bringing each idea to life remain. The Army has been promising to deliver autonomous ground systems across the force for years, with minimal success.

The Army AI’s Task Force is also developing a DevSecOps environment for its machine learning algorithms. To keep its code secure, it’s working to adopt best practices from the private sector on software development security, Murray said.

Putting money where its mouth is

Fresh research on defense spending shows that the Army’s autonomous systems saw recent spikes in AI-related funding. The analysis by Govini — which used its own machine learning and AI-enabled research tools to compare recent years of defense spending and the president’s fiscal 2021 budget request — found that across fiscal years 2016-17 and fiscal years 2018-19, Army research and development obligations for advanced autonomous systems increased from $61.8 million to $177.2 million, an 187% rise.

While the research numbers are increasing, spending on other aspects of advanced autonomous systems is likely to decrease, the report found. The White House’s 2021 budget request would shrink it in the Army to below $4 billion from $4.6 billion in fiscal 2020. Murray added that he expects the top-line defense budget to either stay level or possibly shrink due to coronavirus-related spending, triggering hard choices for how he will allocate his modernization and long-term development resources.

“We are probably not going to see real growth” in the coming years, Murray said.

‘In the future everything is going be a sensor’

Developing autonomous systems that can coordinate across domains is a part of the Army’s “Project Convergence,” which aims to achieve battlefield advantage through multi-domain operations. It is the ground force’s version to the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System family of technologies and Joint All Domain Operations doctrine. The core tech behind enabling each service’s multi-domain desires is a common data architecture that can process information in real time to connect “every sensor to every shooter,” as the common saying goes.

For Murray, he wants to not only connect every sensor to every shooter, but prepare for a military internet of things where “everything is going to a be a sensor.” That will include everything from autonomous systems to the tips of the weapons they will deploy being a sensor generating data to be digested. Preparation for that reality means hardening network security and doing the type of work the AI task force is now focusing on with unmanned/unmanned teaming systems, Murray said.

Right now, “Convergence” is a noun in Murray’s vocabulary. “What we are trying to do is take that noun and turn it into a verb,” he said.

Ted Kaouk named CDO Council chair

Ted Kaouk will chair the Chief Data Officers Council as it works to improve agencies’ collection and use of data, the Office of Management and Budget announced Wednesday.

The CDO Council was created by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, or Evidence Act for short. The council is responsible for supporting agency CDOs in implementing the Federal Data Strategy and corresponding 2020 Action Plan, evaluating new technologies for making CDOs’ jobs easier, and coordinating with other data-related, governmentwide councils.

“The CDO Council can and should develop processes for capturing high-value shared opportunities and best practices while recognizing organizational differences and challenges,” Kaouk, CDO of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in an announcement. “We will need to leverage the collective wisdom of everyone on the council for this foundational work.”

Kaouk is also a senior fellow in the Excellence in Government Fellows Program. He holds a doctorate from the University of Maryland, College Park; a master’s degree from the University of Virginia; and a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy.

“We are very pleased to have Ted’s leadership for the Chief Data Officers Council,” said Suzette Kent, federal chief information officer, in a statement. “His cross-agency leadership with recent efforts to share resources across agencies demonstrated his commitment to the objectives of the CDO Council.”

State Department seeks ‘clean path’ 5G networks

The Department of State is exploring how it can adopt what it calls “clean path” 5G networks free of any dependencies on untrusted foreign vendors like Huawei and ZTE in its supply chain.

In a new request for information, the department defines a clean path as “an end-to-end communication path that does not use any 5G transmission, control, computing, or storage equipment from an untrusted vendor.” State wants to hear from industry sources on how it can achieve such a 5G environment both at home and abroad in line with the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which prohibits government use of Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi, and other untrusted vendors from China.

“5G has the potential to deliver the infrastructure and services necessary to truly revolutionize mobile computing and services,” the RFI says. “It will provide bandwidth and latency characteristics comparable to today’s consumer fixed access networks.  These are the next generation capabilities required to build a world class network the can be the foundation for technologies such as edge computing, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a staff report  Tuesday that details the breadth of the Chinese threat to U.S. telecommunications networks.

The solicitation follows Secretary Mike Pompeo‘s comments in late April about securing America’s diplomatic communication networks.

“Simply put, in upcoming 5G networks, mobile data traffic entering American diplomatic systems will be subject to new, stringent requirements if it has transited Huawei equipment,” Pompeo said. “The objective is that untrusted IT vendors will have no access to U.S. State Department systems. We will follow the letter of the law to ensure that we have a clean path for all 5G network traffic coming into all of our facilities, period. We will keep doing all we can to keep our critical data and our networks safe from the Chinese Communist Party.”

This RFI asks industry just how State Department can accomplish that beginning with department operations overseas.

“A 5G Clean Path embodies the highest standards of security against untrusted, high-risk vendors’ ability to disrupt, deny, or tamper with telecommunications traffic and services to private citizens, financial institutions, businesses, government, or critical infrastructure,” the RFI says. “It is important that countries and telecommunications operators understand the United States is not just talking about secure 5G networks, but is also requiring and implementing them.”

Vendors have until July 3 to respond.

DIU looking for robots that can kill coronavirus

The Defense Innovation Unit, the military’s Silicon Valley liaison for acquiring emerging technology, wants a “automated hardware solution” to decontaminate areas potentially harboring coronavirus particles.

DIU’s solicitation seeks tech that can operate in military-specific environments, like onboard a ship or in sleeping quarters. Already, the pandemic has caused readiness setbacks, such as the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s needing to take harbor while the virus spread through the ship and caused the death of a sailor. Other service branches have had to adjust their training and recruitment to account for social distancing.

“The current COVID-19 crisis highlights the need for rapid decontamination/disinfection of rooms and enclosed spaces in shipboard and other mission-ready environments to mitigate the spread of disease or infection,” the solicitation states.

DIU usually focuses on emerging technology, like artificial intelligence and cybersecurity tools, but and is now working to find pandemic-related hardware to promote “continuity of military operations,” and “readiness,” according to the posting.

Prototypes pitched to DIU should have repeatable automation and not damage their surroundings, the agency said.

Keith Bluestein takes over as CIO of the Small Business Administration

Keith Bluestein returned to the Small Business Administration as its chief information officer this week, filling the vacancy left by Maria Roat.

The transition took effect June 7 with Bluestein coming over from NASA, where he served as associate CIO for enterprise services and integration.

Bluestein was previously the deputy and acting CIO for SBA, managing information technology project delivery, advising agency leadership and ensuring personal identification verification compliance with White House mandates.

“Mr. Bluestein will further SBA’s efforts to meet the needs of America’s small business community, support the president’s initiatives and SBA’s strategic plan, and boost the agency’s enterprise capabilities to support operations across program offices,” said an agency spokesperson.

At NASA, Bluestein oversaw end-user services, communications and infrastructure, cloud and data center computing, information management and data governance, and IT security support.

Roat left SBA in May to become deputy federal CIO under Suzette Kent in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Democratic lawmakers target 4 agencies that reportedly surveilled protests

Four federal agencies should cease surveilling this year’s widespread protests of systemic racism, a group of 35 Democratic House members say in a letter sent Tuesday.

As millions of people have taken to the streets in hundreds of communities the last 10 days, reports have said the National Guard, FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration have conducted surveillance and shared intelligence about the protests, which came in response to the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

The letter cites news stories about the Guard, FBI and CBP flying manned and unmanned aircraft equipped with infrared and electro-optical cameras, as well as “dirtboxes” for collecting cellphone location data over protests. Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Minneapolis, San Antonio, and Detroit have seen such aircraft. The letter also refers to a report that said DEA received special permission from the Justice Department to covertly surveil and share intelligence on the protests — outside the agency’s normal mandate.

“Government surveillance has a chilling effect,” reads the letter. “Downloads for encrypted messaging apps have spiked during recent demonstrations, showing a broad concern of surveillance among protesters.”

Reps. Anna Eshoo of California and Bobby Rush of Illinois spearheaded the letter, after the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the surveillance of protestors Saturday. Committee leadership separately sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security concerning CBP’s role in surveillance. Eshoo and Rush sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has technology policy under its jurisdiction.

CBP confirmed reports of a Predator B drone over the Minneapolis protest on May 29, well outside its jurisdiction of no more than 100 air miles inland from any border. The agency’s involvement was “particularly alarming” given the committee is also investigating racist, sexist and xenophobic comments made in secret CBP Facebook groups by employees potentially deployed to silence protestors, leaders said.

“We write with grave concern about the use of [DHS] resources—including drones and armed uniformed officers—to surveil and intimidate peaceful protesters who were exercising their First Amendment rights to protest the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department,” reads the letter.

House Oversight requested all communication tied to DHS activities — including everywhere it policed protests, the costs and legal authorities invoked — by June 11, 2020 and a staff briefing by June 15, 2020. The committee also wants to know who requested DHS’s involvement in each instance, what data was collected, whether it was shared, and plans for retention and future use.

Oversight’s request of DHS singles out facial recognition software and hardware used and asks whether the algorithm employed was evaluated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

IBM letter to Congress

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna wrote his own letter to Congress on Monday, stating the tech company will no longer offer general purpose facial recognition or analysis software to law enforcement, or even research the technology.

“IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency,” Krishna wrote. “We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies.”

Better communication still needed on VA’s EHR push, congressional watchdog says

The Department of Veterans Affairs needs more input from clinicians and other stakeholders on its massive electronic health records (EHR) modernization effort, a recent Government Accountability Office investigation found.

The report says that the department took positive steps to create lines of communication — including “EHR Councils” comprised of doctors and other VA staff to give feedback — but those channels didn’t get enough information about the program.

More communication would result in better feedback, the GAO said, citing interviews with clinicians. The report recommends the VA “ensure the involvement of all relevant medical facility stakeholders,” which the department concurred with.

The EHR program is a complete overhaul of the “antiquated” health record and scheduling system currently used across the VA, known as Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture. The $16 billion, 10-year program seeks to migrate health records to a cloud system built by Cerner Millennium, while transforming the technology clinicians, hospital workers and VHA employees use to interact with patients.

Previous reports from government watchdogs have chided the VA for a lack of coordination and communication across stakeholder groups on the new system. Congressional hearings have also touched on the challenge of ensuring that medical professionals are included in the process of design and training the new IT systems. IT infrastructure issues also loom over the successful implementation of the program.

“GAO found that VA’s decision-making procedures were generally effective as demonstrated by adherence to applicable federal internal control standards for establishing structure, responsibility, and authority, and communicating internally and externally, but that VA did not always ensure key stakeholder involvement,” the report says.

The report notes that the VA’s priorities have shifted to focus on patient care during the coronavirus pandemic. With resources and attention on front-line staff, the EHR roll out was delayed in its first go-live locations in Washington state. It remains unclear what the current delay will mean for future implementation of the program.