Page 8 - FCW, June 15, 2016

Trending
Is census 2020 running out
of runway?
With a new CIO in the wings and the 2020 headcount creeping ever closer, the state of the Census Bureau’s IT is catching congressional watchdogs’ attention — again.
In a recent letter, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested detailed updates on the bureau’s technology testing progress. “We remain con- cerned about the status of planned
100 veterans have now graduated from the NS2 Serves career training program for
data analytics
despite warnings from the Govern- ment Accountability Office that Cen- sus needs more testing time.
The House committee requested a response to its letter by May 24.
— Zach Noble
OMB teaches
privacy pros
about tech
Privacy and security professional could live together in harmony with more talking and training.
“There is no tension between the principles of privacy and the princi- ples of security,” said Marc Groman, senior privacy adviser in the Office of Management and Budget, at the (ISC)2 CyberSecureGov leadership event in May. Privacy and security profession- als can work “perfectly in concert” if they are involved from the inception of a project, he added.
To help privacy specialists have a meaningful role in security discus- sions, OMB has begun offering them technical training.
“It is my personal belief that you cannot be a privacy professional in 2016 and not understand tech,” Gro- man said. “And so we are building a technology curriculum for federal government privacy professionals so that when they sit across the table from all of you, as you’re building a new system or discussing enterprise architecture, they have a baseline understanding of tech, just like I hope you all will have a baseline under- standing of privacy.”
He also urged technology and secu- rity experts to embrace their priva- cy-focused colleagues. “As soon as you start an initiative...bring in the privacy people immediately,” Groman advised. “It is far easier to bake in privacy by design” than try to tack it on afterward.
— Zach Noble
Office of Management and Budget guidance can be implemented when it is finalized. The new rule takes effect June 15.
— Mark Rockwell
Lisa Blumerman
tests for...critical IT components,” the lawmakers wrote.
In November 2015, the commit- tee held a hearing to examine Census’ IT situation, and in their letter, lawmak-
New rule puts security onus on contractors
The government has announced mini- mum cybersecurity standards for con- tractors that store controlled unclas- sified information (CUI) and classified information in their IT systems.
“Systems that contain classified information, or CUI such as person- ally identifiable information, require more than the basic level of pro- tection,” a May 16 Federal Register notice states. The regulation was issued by the Defense Department, the General Services Administration and NASA.
Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners, said the rule notifies federal contractors that they must protect their information not only on defense contracts but also on civilian contracts.
The rule specifies basic require- ments for contractors, including limiting system access, requiring user authentication, maintaining access logs, compartmentalizing networks, frequently scanning data and monitor- ing network boundaries.
According to an alert from Wash- ington regulatory law firm Wiley Rein, the rule establishes basic safeguard- ing measures that are generally part of routine business practices and does not affect other information- safeguarding requirements related to CUI or classified information.
DOD, GSA and NASA officials said they will develop changes to the Fed- eral Acquisition Regulation so that
ers questioned whether bureau offi- cials had done anything since then to improve the technology for the 2020 count.
“During the hearing, we raised con- cerns about the bureau’s failure to meet its own technology milestones,” the letter states. “The information technology challenges for the upcom- ing census appear similar to those that plagued the 2010 decennial census.”
In 2010, the bureau went $3 billion over budget and had to scrap a plan to use custom-built mobile devices after running out of time for end-to- end testing.
Census has already committed to a mobile device-as-a-service model for 2020, and it made that decision ahead of its initial September 2016 deadline. However, other crucial decisions con- tinue to crowd the 2016 schedule.
In January, Associate Director for Decennial Census Programs Lisa Blu- merman told FCW the bureau didn’t plan to radically change its timeline,
8 June 15, 2016 FCW.COM