People

EEOC: Women still lag far behind men in the government’s STEM workforce

A new report from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission digs into women in the government’s STEM workforce, showing gaps in overall participation, leadership and pay.

Digital Government

Amazon Admits to Giving Police Ring Footage Without Owners’ Permission

The smart-doorbell company, which has partnered with more than 2,000 law enforcement agencies, said in a letter that it shared multiple videos with police departments without first seeking user consent.

Cybersecurity

Simple Cyber Reporting Will Enable Better Governmentwide Response, Lawmaker Argues

Sen. Gary Peters discussed how streamlined reporting to CISA can clarify the cyber threat landscape to all U.S. networks.

Digital Government

Watchdog: CDC Needs Automation to Fix Clunky COVID-19 Tracking for Airlines

The Government Accountability Office said that outdated data collection habits result in difficulty contact tracing for COVID infections among airlines. 

Ideas

Customer service at the National Security Agency

Steve Kelman finds a helping hand in the highly secretive spy shop.

Digital Government

Solid Collaboration Tools Essential to Remote, Hybrid Work

User-friendly collaboration tools that work as expected are key to remote worker satisfaction, a new survey finds.

Emerging Tech

Browser Cookies Make People More Cautious Online, Study Finds

Browser cookies don't make people as excited actual cookies.

Cybersecurity

Cyber Safety Review Board Closes the Book on SolarWinds While Reporting on Log4j 

Legislation seeking to amend the annual National Defense Authorization Act wants the Government Accountability Office to investigate.

Defense

Space runs on open source software. The U.S. Air Force is fine with that

Commercial space players don’t have the same security concerns as the Pentagon, but that doesn’t mean they can’t share code.

People

Federal employee morale is falling, and one group thinks the Slow appointments process is to blame

The Veterans Affairs Department was the only large agency to improve on its 2020 score in the latest annual Best Places to Work in the Federal Government report.

Cybersecurity

NIST promotes testbed to address threats targeting ML systems

Dioptra, an experimentation testbed fielded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, allows researchers to better understand the techniques that can help protect their products and systems against an increasing number of attacks targeting machine learning algorithms.

Digital Government

Russia Seems to Be Running Low on Drones

The Russian military wrote the book on tactical drones in 2014. Now its leaders are begging foreign partners and regional officials to help replace downed UAVs.

Digital Government

GAO: State Department Needs to Do More to Address IT Workforce Challenges

The agency does not have the necessary data to evaluate its IT staffing practices, according to the watchdog.

People

GAO dings State Department's IT workforce efforts

The State Department is currently working on an IT strategic workforce plan to address recruitment and retention issues, according to comments included in a recent oversight report.

Emerging Tech

Heavy Metal on the High Seas

The Navy is deploying a shipboard metal-producing 3D printer to test during RIMPAC exercises.

Modernization

Bad data and old tech hamper CDC's ability track COVID exposures on flights

Because of its clunky, outdated data system, the CDC can't quickly identify how many people were exposed to a sick person on a plane, a recent GAO report states.

Artificial Intelligence

USPTO Works to Modernize Patent Processing with AI

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office widened its developer talent pool with open source coding challenges and an international presence. 

Digital Government

UK Official: Mass Resignation Won’t Interfere with Facilitation of US Data Transfers

The Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture is leading an effort to adapt the General Data Protection Regulation into legislation for the United Kingdom, given Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Modernization

State Department releases draft of $10 billion plan to upgrade diplomatic tech

The "Evolve" solicitation is designed to revamp the technology products and services used by U.S. diplomats at home and abroad.