IT in the US public sector

2022: A law was signed in the USA to launch a program of interdepartmental rotation of information security specialists

On June 21, 2022, it became known that US President Biden signed a law that provides for the creation of a rotating program of interdepartmental rotation of information security specialists

According to the statement of the developers of the law, the goal of the program is to attract and retain cybersecurity specialists by providing them with new professional experience in various federal agencies. The law must end five years after it is signed into law.

In the United States, a law was signed on the launch of a program of interdepartmental rotation of information security specialists

The law on interdepartmental rotation of specialists was adopted against the background of a significant shortage of personnel in the field of information security. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Workforce Needs Tracking Program, there are more than 714 thousand open cybersecurity vacancies, of which almost 39 thousand are in the public sector.

Under the law, some federal employees in certain IT or cybersecurity positions would be able to be assigned to work outside their department for one year, with the option of a 60-day extension.

The director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Services will be required to develop and issue a program work plan that specifies which agencies will participate in the program, as well as other policies and procedures. Agencies will decide for themselves which of their positions can participate in the program.

We cannot rely only on private investment to protect our cyber infrastructure from intruders, "Hannah Roh, one of the bill's representatives, said in a statement. The federal government, America's largest employer, has a leading role to play. This dynamic rotational program will give our cyber professionals the extensive expertise they need to defend against growing threats abroad.[1]

2020

Trump signed a law on the modernization of departmental IT centers

In early December 2020, it became known that Donald Trump signed a law on the modernization of departmental IT centers. The US President has identified the principles that federal departments should be guided by when using cloud technology, artificial intelligence and Big Data.

The law assumes that 10 existing and future Centers of Excellence (CoE) associations establish cooperation between federal agencies and industry in areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud adoption, contact centers, customer service, data and analytics, and infrastructure optimization.

Donald Trump signed a law on the modernization of departmental IT centers

As technology continues to transform and evolve, it's important that the federal government understands the significant impact it will have on our country, economy and society, said Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who actively supports Centers of Excellence (CoE).

The bill would ensure that our government has the capacity and expertise to help deal with the impact of innovative technologies in the coming years and decades, Portman added.

Chief Technical Officer in the US Administration Michael Kratsios notes that the presidential decree will strengthen public confidence in technology, lead to the modernization of the government and further demonstrate the country's leadership in the field of artificial intelligence.

The law emphasizes that the use of AI must be "legal, reliable, accurate, transparent, targeted and performance-oriented."

Nevertheless, the authorities of some American states and individual cities are already concerned about some applications that use AI, in particular, "algorithmic bias" raises questions. Some programs made mistakes in face recognition.^[2]

Voter voting using smartphones

In January 2020, residents of King County, Washington, became the first US citizens to be able to vote using smartphones.

According to the announcement, 1.2 million voters from the area will be able to vote from smartphones in the King County Board of Supervisors elections, which will be held from January 22 to February 11. It's the first of its kind of US voting experience, though in recent years some voters have been allowed to vote using a smartphone if they couldn't get to the polls.

King County, Washington residents become first U.S. citizens to vote with smartphones

In the past, only 1-3% of King County residents voted in such elections, so giving the right to vote using a smartphone is seen as a pilot initiative, which, if successful, could extend to other elections. The new voting program was made possible by the collaboration of Democracy Live, which provides electronic voting, the National Center, cyber security Tusk Philanthropies and King County Government.

Last time in the elections to the Supervisory Board, ballots were sent by e-mail, but only 1% of the district's residents sent them back. The new project is expected to greatly simplify the voting procedure and attract voters. The participant is only required to go to the election website using his own name and date of birth as a login and password, and cast his vote for any of the candidates.

But while the ability to vote with a smartphone could increase voter turnout, security experts are still angry about existing protections. Experts still regularly oppose online voting, arguing that such a decision opens a direct path to falsification of results.

Founder of Tusk Philanthropies Bradley Tusk said that voting smartphones is absolutely safe, and this has been proven dozens of times.^[3]

2019: Trump signs order promoting AI at state level

On February 11, 2019, the president USA Donald Trump signed a decree promoting artificial intelligence technologies at the state level. Federal government bodies will have to allocate more resources and investments to research, development and training of personnel in the field of AI. The news agency Reuters was told about this in the presidential administration.

By a new decree, Trump launched the American artificial intelligence AI Initiative. In accordance with it, the White House will instruct departments to prioritize investments in AI research and development, expand access to federal data and models for these studies, and adapt workers to the era of artificial intelligence.

Donald Trump gave orders to departments to invest in artificial intelligence

While no specific funding has yet been announced, it is already known that the initiative is designed to improve reporting and track spending on AI-related research and development, according to a presidential administration official.

The new project aims to ensure that the United States retains its research and development advantages in AI and related fields such as new manufacturing technologies and quantum computing.

AI is something that affects every aspect of people's lives, says an administration official. - This initiative is trying to bring everyone together under the same auspices and show the American people the potential of this technology.

Earlier in February 2019, Donald Trump addressed Congress with a traditional message on the state of affairs in the country and the world. During his speech, the head of state noted that he was ready to interact with legislative bodies for new important investments in infrastructure, including in advanced areas of the future.^[4]

2018: US authorities: Half of officials' jobs can be done by computers

About 5% of U.S. federal employees can be replaced by computers - the functions these workers perform can be "fully automated." The functions of another 60% of civil servants can be automated by at least a third. In total, about 45% of work duties that are now performed in federal positions by people can be automated.

Such data are presented in the "2018 Federal Workforce Priorities Report" (FWPR), which was released in April 2018 by the U.S. Office of Human Resources Management. When compiling the report, the department's specialists were guided by the level of technology development as it was as of 2016^[5]

In the report "Labor Resources of the 21st Century," which is an addition to the recently published "Presidential Agenda," the Office of Personnel Management specifies what should be done to automate the duties of civil servants. The report was prepared in conjunction with the US Administration of the Budget and the Department of Defense.

According to the planned plan, the personnel service and the budget department are required to identify and launch pilot programs in three areas by the first quarter of 2019, where automation can have the greatest impact.

By the second quarter, departments must understand how automation will affect civil servants and determine the set of skills that they will need in the future. At the same time, the personnel department should launch a pilot to retrain workers who will be affected by automation.

Departments are also required to present ways to measure human resources and speed up the online recruitment process. Historically, the U.S. government has found it difficult to recruit young employees, including those in IT-related positions. Many attribute this to the long employment process in federal departments. To reduce it, human resources management will have to create an automation tool that will help managers sort applicants' applications. Also, the department should build a system into which digital data about employees will be entered in order to speed up their transfer from one department to another.

2017: White House talks about IT reform

On December 13, 2017, the administration of US President Donald Trump announced that the government needs global reform of IT systems and measures to strengthen data protection and use cloud services.

Difficulties in allocating government resources to support IT modernization, speed of service delivery and technical problems have led to the creation of a cumbersome and outdated federal IT infrastructure, the White House said in a report.

Donald Trump

According to the Trump administration, the American government should remove barriers to the use of commercial cloud technologies. Governments must consolidate their IT investments and increase confidence in services and infrastructure managed by others.

One unnamed provider of the cloud email service agreed to help track the costs of moving the government's e-mail system to the cloud. The estimated date for the IT reform is 2018.

According to a report by the General Budget and Audit Office (GAO), funds invested by the US government in IT are "wasted - many structures use outdated programming languages ​ ​ and equipment that is no longer supported."

The GAO study found that some authorities use systems with components that are at least 50 years old.

In April 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a new technology council to radically redesign the US government's information technology systems.

In June 2017, the White House said most of the government's 6,100 data centers could be consolidated and moved to cloud storage.^[6]

2015

How the US authorities saved $3.6 billion on the clouds

In mid-2015, the results of a five-year program to optimize IT spending in government agencies were published in the United States. By introducing cloud technologies, consolidating data centers and other measures, several billion dollars were saved.

According to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), from 2011 to 2014, efforts to reduce information technology costs in government agencies provided savings of $3.6 billion. This amount includes both the amount of reduced costs for certain projects and new costs that were avoided during the execution of the program. Annual IT budgets in US government agencies are estimated at $80 billion.

By introducing cloud technologies, consolidating data centers and other measures, American government agencies managed to save several billion dollars

One of the methods of optimizing budgets was the "cut and reinvest" strategy, in which institutions first reduced IT costs by about 10%, and then invested the savings in IT projects that imply even higher savings. This approach was practiced by 26 departments, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Homeland Security, the Ministry of Finance and the Social Security Administration. These four structures accounted for approximately 70% of the reduced spending thanks to the government program.

Almost half of the reduced IT costs were provided by consolidating data centers, involving the closure of some sites, the use of virtualization and analytical tools, the consolidation of license agreements, the transfer of IT management to Internet platforms and large-scale migration to the cloud.^[7]

In the United States will facilitate young IT companies access to government orders

In early September 2015, the General Services Administration (GSA), which is responsible for public procurement in the United States, announced its intention to simplify access to government orders for young IT companies.

The GSA made a request for information (RFI), asking technology companies to give recommendations on improving the federal system in the field of public procurement.

The General Services Administration is considering removing the mandatory minimum experience requirement for corporate contracts. By September 2015, it is two years old, only such IT vendors are allowed to state orders.

In the US, they want to make it easier for young IT companies to access government orders

Those applicants for a state order who work on the market for less than a two-year period can confirm their qualifications with documents reflecting real experience in the area required by the customer and their financial responsibility.

It will be possible to abandon the requirement for two years of work experience only if this measure will increase the number of new and developing small companies participating in state tenders, as well as new contractors that meet sales criteria among other indicators, the RFI request says.

easier for suppliers to work with us, we can offer the government as a whole better access to innovative companies, advanced technology solutions and a wider range of options," GSA employee Denise Turner Roth wrote in a blog post.

The GSA will collect opinions from private companies and federal bodies until September 18, 2015. After that, a decision will be made on the possibility of mitigating the requirements for young IT companies wishing to take part in government contracts.^[8]

2013

Federal IT Budget 2013 Fiscal

President Barack Obama' proposed a federal IT budget for 2013 of $78.9 billion, 0.7% lower than the 2012 IT budget. As the Chief information officer of the US Presidential Administration , Steven VanRoekel, commented , the 2013 budget reflects attempts to do more for less. For fiscal year 2012, Congress approved an IT budget of $79.5 billion, while in 2011 it was $80.2 billion.

The key priorities of US IT spending in 2013 will be strengthening cyber security and the development of e-government, in particular, ways of interaction between citizens and businesses with government agencies, VanRokel said. One of the items of expenditure ($202 million) will also be the continuation of the government monitoring program at the Department of National Security.

Attention will also be paid to the return of public investment in IT. "We must watch with manic zeal to reduce costs and eliminate duplication in IT management," VanRokel stated.

The US admitted that it had been implementing an ineffective IT strategy for several years, which led to large budget overruns. Now IT public procurement is reducing from year to year, primarily in the defense industry. 

The US Department of Defense, which consumes almost half of the country's state IT budget, will be cut in information technology spending by about 2.7% to $1 billion, Barack Obama's administration Chief information officer said during a press briefing. The IT budgets of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Finance and the Departments of Veterans Affairs will maximize in 2013.

For the US Department of Defense, the key point remains the implementation of a program to reduce data centers belonging to the department: a total of 100 data centers should be closed, which will save about $300 million.

The Treasury IT budget will grow in 2013 by $358.7 million, which will be used to develop technologies that will simplify the filing of tax returns. The Department of Health will receive an IT budget of $179 million more than in 2012: they will be used to develop IT systems of hospitals and clinics.

VanRokel also announced his plans to soon launch three programs that allow federal agencies to deepen their IT expertise. He will use IT special forces, special teams of experts who will bring to mind the most problematic IT projects.

Fiscal year 2013 begins on October 1, 2012.

The United States is hiding the failure of IT reforms in the public sector

Attempts by the administration of US President Barack Obama to streamline state IT systems and increase their efficiency are much slower than previously planned.

In May 2012, according to David Powner, director of IT management at the local U.S. Government Accountability Office or GAO, although the administration has made "significant progress" in some aspects, the authorities generally overestimate the results achieved. "Our inspection has shown much less progress than has been stated," Powner noted during a joint hearing with the relevant Senate national security and government subcommittee.

One of the government's outstanding tasks, for example, is still the issue of closing 1000 data centers by 2015, which includes the transfer of a number of government IT systems to the cloud, Powner said. The GOA also analyzed all 10 key goals of the Obama administration's plan to modernize IT: according to the administration, 7 of them have already been achieved, according to GOA experts - only 3.

According to David Powner, there are a number of problems that prevent the speedy achievement of the goals. In particular, he refers to the fact that about 25% of large IT projects are controlled directly by the US government, they account for about $13 billion in government spending on information technology.

The expert believes that in such a situation, it is necessary to avoid duplication of costs with particular care, and, in addition, work on the further development of federal procurement, which will allow more active use of the "modular scheme," when large projects are divided into smaller fragments. Of the 7 main US IT goals for 5, deadlines have not yet been determined, GAO indicates.

Stephen VanRokel, chief IT officer in Barack Obama's administration, believes the difference between government assessments of IT reform progress and GAO assessments is overblown. The disagreements between the departments relate mainly to the 25-point IT reform plan announced by the Obama administration in 2010. "It's a real shock to the system," VanRokel says. According to him, reforms will not be stopped on reaching all 25 points.

2012: Smart Cities Technology Testing

More than 40% of US local authorities will be involved in testing smart cities technologies in 2013, and 50% of settlements will implement similar solutions in the same year, according to an IDC study (December 2012)^[9]

Also, according to the forecasts of the researchers of this company:

• The consolidation of the government IT infrastructure will reach its peak, since most authorities in the United States reached a cloud penetration rate of about 50% in 2012, cloud computing accounted for about 7% of public sector spending on IT.

• Tactical implementations of Big Data technologies in government agencies will grow by an average of 30% per year and will ultimately create a powerful analytical platform on the basis of which Smart Government technologies will develop.

• Ordinary government agencies and organizations will actively rationalize their spending on IT assets, and will also be careful about the choice of end devices (PCs, tablets, smartphones) in terms of their optimal use.

• Mobile devices and applications, sensors, cloud solutions, as well as city portals actively involved in the state IT infrastructure will lead to a 48% increase in digital data in 2013, which will create new information assets and raise questions about their rational use.

• Cloud data exchange and collaboration solutions will be used at all government levels (federal, state and local), so data exchange services will account for 18% of the entire government cloud solutions market, and this will create completely new IT models.

• Although the US public sector will remain far behind other industries in terms of investment in social software, 35% of US government organizations in 2013 will assess or implement social analytics tools.

• At all government levels, the introduction of mobile applications will increase. In 2013, 35% of new federal and state applications will be mobile, among new applications of local authorities there will be 45%.

• More than 40% of local US governments will be involved in smart city projects at the research or evaluation stage, and 50% will begin implementing such projects in 2013.

• Government organizations that promote open standards in relation to data will have 25% higher activity in commercial applications, which will lead to more effective achievement of a number of government goals.

• Public/private partnerships in terms of IT will be reviewed in terms of their compliance with the overall mission.

2011

Corruption problems in US public procurement

Vivek Kundra, Chief information officer of the US White House administration and a key figure in the American IT industry, at a meeting with leading advisers to President Barack Obama on science, warned colleagues about the dangers of open access to data and complained about the "IT cartel" and collusion mega-vendors. He also made it clear that the US government needs to reduce the number of data centers used.^[10]

Kundra, whose work in the US government ends in mid-August, brought to the attention of the assembled science and technology advisers many of his worries about the information technology of the federal center. His concern, in particular, is caused by the unintended consequences of sharing government data, where information is combined and layered in ways that could damage privacy and pose a security risk.

In an era and Facebook with plenty Twitter of personal data already available, government information likely "harmless in the past" could be used to "identify individuals unwilling to be public," Kundra said.

He rather sharply criticized the practice of concluding government IT contracts and told the committee that "we, within the framework of federal IT, have almost developed an IT cartel," which is made up of "very few companies" that benefit from government orders, "because they understand the public procurement process better than anyone." "And this is not at all because they provide the best technology," he said, speaking of contractors.

According to Kundra, the government knows "that the true value of information is at the intersection of its various sources," but it also understands - there may be problems if the data is issued "without actually thinking about the consequences for national security." He said, as an example, that his office was negotiating with the Nuclear Settlement Commission on the information it intends to release, and, without disclosing specifics, admitted that there was "a very heated debate" around these negotiations. In his opinion, the use of privacy is extremely important.

Cloud strategy

In 2011, the United States Federal CIO Vivek Kundra introduced a new state information technology strategy, according to which a quarter of the $80 billion budget will be allocated to cloud computing.

According to Vivek Kundra, cloud computing will achieve 30% savings on data center infrastructure: 'Cloud computing will simplify the work of IT departments, since they no longer have to support complex, heterogeneous systems'. This is not only about saving finances, but also about the possibility of using qualified personnel in more important tasks: 'The focus will shift from technology as such to the basic competencies of a state institution and its main mission'.

The 43-page "cloud strategy" of the US federal government consists of 5 sections: an introductory section, a decision guide for the transition to cloud computing, a systematic set of examples of successful use of cloud computing in the US public sector, recommendations for improving the efficiency of cloud computing implementation and conclusion. At the same time, Vivek Kundra emphasizes that when moving to cloud computing, it is not enough to think only about their advantages: "Government agencies should weigh risks and carefully consider the readiness of commercial or government suppliers to implement the requirements of federal IT systems."

According to the document, before hosting some IT service in the cloud, a government agency must provide a sufficient level of security on several aspects. Among them are compliance with the requirements of laws, by-laws and internal regulatory documents; clarification of the nature of the data in order to clarify the specific safety requirements for this type of data; ensuring privacy and confidentiality in order to protect against accidental or malicious access to information; ensuring data integrity, including authorization, completeness and accuracy; Define data control and access policies to determine where data can be placed geographically Organization of adequate data management: Cloud service providers must be sufficiently transparent, provide adequate security and control, and access to information needed to independently monitor the effectiveness of these tools. Kundra reports that each of the federal government institutions will have to revise its IT procurement strategy and include cloud computing in the budget process: "Government agencies will make changes to their IT systems to maximize the benefits that cloud computing provides, namely, the use of computing resources to the full, giving greater flexibility to IT systems, increasing returns and reducing cost."

Closing of state data centers

Vivek Kundra, chief IT specialist in the United States, said that the federal government will close 137 data centers by the end of 2011, 39 of them have already been closed.

At the same time, the US Department of Defense operates almost 40% of those data centers that will be closed. In total, by 2015, the government intends to disable 400 data centers.

Among the 39 already closed data centers are those that also provided the work of information systems of NASA, the State Department and the Department of Health, as well as the Department of Social Services. Vivek Kundra announced this in his blog.

Last week, Kundra revealed big details about how the 25-point U.S. modernization program is state IT infrastructures moving. It includes, among other things, a subsection concerning the consolidation of data center capacities.

In his blog, he also published a map of the regions of the country where the closures will be carried out, and it also indicates their belonging to various departments. Also, a division was produced for already closed data centers and planned for closure by the end of the year.

52 data centers of the Ministry of Defense will be closed during the year: for American government agencies this is the maximum figure. For the most part, NASA data centers are already closed, 14 are in line. For the most part, they are located in Washington County.

The Departments of Agroculture, Justice, Energy, Veterans Affairs and several others are also included in this federal program. According to Kundra, the government also speaks a number of transactions of a similar kind with vacated real estate.

For example, one of these data centers in Rockville (Maryland) totaled almost 15 thousand square meters with 218 equipment racks that consumed $1.2 million a year in electricity. The total usable area of ​ ​ 39 closed data centers is 325 thousand square meters.

Consolidation is necessary for the United States, since from 1998 to the present they have grown as mushrooms from 432 to more than 2 thousand. As a result, redundant resources and redundant applications were created, which Kundra compared to weeds. The task of the current CIO is to fix everything.

It was previously announced that IBM will create a "cloud" that allows NATO's allied command center to use technology to spend more efficiently, facilitate the introduction of new technologies, as well as consolidate existing IT resources. This will allow NATO to close 800 existing data centers.

The United States doubled the cost of protecting state secrets

The US government, minus key espionage operations, spent $11.36 billion to protect classified data in 2011, according to a report by the local Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). This spending parameter has grown significantly over the past decade: in 2001, it amounted to $4.7 billion.

The ISOO report takes into account the costs of 41 U.S. executive branch organizations, including the U.S. Department of Defense. However, it does not include spending by the CIA, the Office of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency and other entities related to the espionage process.

Each year, the ISOO evaluates federal agencies for how they classify, store and preserve sensitive data. In particular, the costs of the relevant personnel, physical controls and IT systems are taken into account. Costs also include training costs and salaries for those involved in classifying and classifying data.

Only on the classification of data, according to the ISOO report, in 2011 was spent 12% more - $1.2 billion. The largest increase in costs was made under items related to IT systems and trainings.

Thus, the cost of information security of classified data in 2011 increased by 19% from $5.21 billion in 2010 to $6.8 billion in 2011. The cost of vocational training and trainings in this area increased from $102 million in 2010 to $502 million in 2011.

The increase in spending provoked both a constant high level of terrorist threat and high-profile scandals related to the leakage of state data, primarily related to Wikileaks.

In particular, US President Barack Obama issued a decree to federal departments in October 2011, obliging them to introduce new measures to restrict access to secret networks and data. Directives of this kind are adopted with a certain regularity.

See also

Overview of IT in the regions of Russia 2015

• Russia in IT ratings
• Information Society and Co-Financing of Regions
• E-Government of Russia
• Informatization of regions (Russian market)
• Statistics on the use of ICT in the Russian public sector
• Electronic public services in the regions of Russia
• Interdepartmental Electronic Interaction System (MEA)
• Development of SMEV in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation
• Universal Electronic Card (UEC)
• UEC in the regions of Russia
• Digitalization of healthcare in Russia
• IT in the education of the Russian Federation
• Concept of MPSC
• Informatization MPSC My documents
• Audit of MPSC compliance with IT recommendations
• MPSC. International experience
• Chief information officer of Russian Regions
• Base analysis Chief information officers Russian regions 2014
• IT in the public sector (global market)
• IT in the EU public sector
• IT in the UK public sector
• IT in India's public sector
• New York experience: How is IT transforming a frontline state?

Notes