FCW Insider: Oct. 23

White House plans to fast-track restrictions on contractor diversity training

The fast-track deviation clause, designed to support the Nov. 21 rollout of new restrictions on diversity and inclusion training for federal agencies and contractors, is expected to be followed quickly by a Federal Acquisition Regulation rulemaking case.

USPS looks to monetize its mapping data

Geospatial data collected by 220,000 Postal Service vehicles could be offered to other agencies on an as-a-service basis.

Ethics vs. compliance in AI

Tech experts warn against treating ethics as like just another box on a compliance checklist.

Quick Hits

*** Federal employees are paid on average 23% less than their private sector counterparts according to a recent assessment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data was released in the report of the Federal Salary Council Working Group for an Oct. 21 public meeting. The gap between feds and the general population is closing: the disparity was 26.7% in 2019 and 31.8% in 2018.

*** The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released two joint alerts, one warning of Russian advanced persistent threat activity that have "compromised" U.S. government networks and Iranian disinformation attacks aimed at undermining "public confidence in the U.S. electoral process.

The Russian threat actor, according to the alert, "laterally traversed a [government] victim network" and accessed documents, including details on end-user computer operations including password resets and setting up two-factor authentication."