News Archive: October 2007

The views represented in these articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, the Privacy Act Program, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

THE SCOOP for October 31, 2007

CIO Council turns focus on privacy
Federal Computer Week - October 23, 2007
"The CIO Council is formally addressing privacy issues -- much the same way it looks at enterprise architecture, best practices and workforce challenges."
Critical Business Information Goes Unsecured
CIO Insight - October 26, 2007
"A high percentage of proprietary business communications are being handled nonchalantly through unsecured channels -- such as Web e-mail and personal instant messaging -- raising serious concerns about the potential loss of intellectual property...."
Ghosts in the machine, spooks on the wire
Computerworld - October 29, 2007
"On the Internet, there's always a ghost in the room -- watching you, listening, recording your activities and interests, aggregating profiles or categorizing you, and whispering secrets and lies about you to others again and again."
Greasing the FOIA skids
Government Computer News - October 22, 2007
"Agencies that want to improve response times and control the costs of processing Freedom of Information Act requests are turning to new software tools for help."
Whistle-blower e-mail addresses exposed in Judiciary Committee snafu
Computerworld - October 30, 2007
"The House Judiciary Committee yesterday apologized to would-be whistle-blowers for accidentally exposing their e-mail addresses to other individuals who, like them, had used a committee Web site to secretly submit tips about alleged abuses at the Department of Justice."

THE SCOOP for October 24, 2007

7 Challenges of Implementing a Content Management System
CMS Wire - October 23, 2007
"...the problem of enterprise content management systems is that while potential 'efficiency' benefits are almost incalculable, the challenges presented by implementing such systems are so daunting and potentially complex that poor decisions at and before implementation can drastically curtail these advantages."
Laptops on the Lam, Again
Washington Post - October 17, 2007
"The Transportation Security Administration isn't terribly secure when it comes to safeguarding personal information. An external computer hard drive with data on 100,000 staffers was reported missing from a secure area at the agency on May 3. Now, two laptops that belonged to a TSA contractor, Integrated Biometric Technology, and that contained details on 3,930 people have disappeared."
Magistrate recommends court order to preserve White House e-mail messages
Federal Computer Week - October 19, 2007
"A federal magistrate recommended Friday that a federal court issue a temporary restraining order to ensure that White House officials preserve all media thought to contain backup copies of millions of e-mail messages -- the subject of ongoing litigation."
What Will Your Agency do if Sensitive Citizen Information is Stolen?
Government Technology - October 22, 2007
"What will happen when taxpayers' personal information gets stolen from the next government department.... Access should be granted on a need, right and time to know basis, making the situation easier to control."

THE SCOOP for October 17, 2007

Groups press White House on e-mail
Federal Computer Week - October 15, 2007
"A government watchdog organization last week requested a temporary restraining order that would require the White House to preserve backup tapes that might contain copies of millions of e-mail messages."
Internet-based system for federal documents previewed
Government Executive - October 15, 2007
"Congressional administrative offices, librarians and select federal employees recently were given a glimpse of the government's first Internet-based system for collecting, distributing and preserving content from all three branches of government."
'Management Glitch' Is Blamed in Ohio Tape Theft
Computerworld - October 15, 2007
"An Ohio state official must surrender a week of future vacation time as punishment for a 'management glitch' that led to the theft of a backup tape holding Social Security numbers and other personal data on more than 100,000 state employees and taxpayers."
Privacy, security depend on program managers, experts say
Federal Computer Week - October 12, 2007
"Program managers need to apply privacy and security best practices early when they plan systems if they want to manage risk effectively, said Robert Wright, principal at Merrill and former chief of the plans and program management unit in the FBI's Cyber Division."
Top Tech Strategies for 2008
PCWorld - October 13, 2007
"A key trend is the evolution of the business process management suite [which] may include, model-driven development, content and document management, collaboration capabilities, system connectivity, business intelligence activity monitoring and management, rules and systems management."
USDA goes deep with Web searches
Government Computer News - October 8, 2007
"The Agriculture Department is making digitized, archived publications more accessible to the public through a technology partnership between ZyLAB, a maker of information access software, and Google."
Watchdog says IRS unable to readily locate key files
Government Executive - October 12, 2007
"The Internal Revenue Service could not find more than 10 percent of case files requested in recent audits, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday in a report that drew a congressional rebuke."

THE SCOOP for October 10, 2007

5 Big Companies That Got Knowledge Management Right
CIO Insight - October 5, 2007
"Knowledge management systems, which facilitate the aggregation and dissemination of a company's collective intelligence, provide numerous benefits, including enabling innovation and improving process efficiency. But successfully implementing these systems can be a challenge."
Commentary: Implementing e-gov projects without applying these laws of gravity leads to potluck solutions
Government Computer News - October 8, 2007
"Watching the ups and downs of e-government during the past seven years has, for me, reinforced two basic beliefs. One is that the laws of gravity are seldom successfully violated, and then only for a very short period of time. Two is that potluck dinners are typically long on casseroles and short on top sirloin."
Compliant storage and archiving - an oxymoron?
CMS Watch - October 3, 2007
"One of the great divides in the ECM world is the gulf between (and different understanding of) the needs of records management on the one hand, versus IT storage on the other." [The article links to a recent Electronic Records Management Survey conducted by Cohasset.]
DHS e-mail snafu reveals info on thousands of security pros
Computerworld - October 4, 2007
"A Reply All to a daily news roundup that had been e-mailed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to some 7,500 people, including thousands of security professionals, flooded government and business mail servers with over 2 million messages.... The gaffe also revealed all subscribers' e-mail addresses, and in some cases other personal information...."
A paperless manifesto: 7 proposals
Federal Computer Week - October 8, 2007
"Ever since IT vendors and consultants began touting the vision of a paperless office, overworked, paper-burdened and resource-strapped state and local government officials have dreamed about the possibilities of junking file cabinets, getting rid of interoffice mail routes and reinventing clunky business processes as models of workflow efficiency."
Simple steps to get on the road to compliance
ZDNet News - October 2, 2007
"Gone are the days when old files were merely put in a box and hauled over to a warehouse. Many of today's compliance regulations call for some form of structured electronic recordkeeping."
Social Security numbers of 450,000 Mass. licensees released
Computerworld - October 4, 2007
"The Massachusetts Division of Professional Licensure (DPL) last month mailed out 28 computer disks containing publicly available information such as names and addresses of state licensees to 23 individuals who requested the public records. This week, it followed up those mailings by informing 450,000 individuals that their Social Security numbers were also inadvertently included...."

THE SCOOP for October 3, 2007

3 Guiding Principles to Technology Acceptance
CIO Insight - October 1, 2007
"Standardization, centralization and simplification are the three guiding principles to help managers and employees accept new technologies, the retiring CIO and CTO of the U.S. Postal Service says."
Attorneys Face Nine Critical Challenges In Being Prepared For Legal Discovery
Metropolitan Corporate Counsel - October 2007
"A clear majority of corporate attorneys highly agree that having a records management program provides essential business benefits such as reduced legal discovery costs and risks. Yet while they recognize the benefits of records management, 92 percent of attorneys admitted that their company's program is vulnerable when it comes to electronically-stored information (ESI) and preparedness for electronic discovery."
Commentary: Plan a 'privacy week'
Federal Times - October 1, 2007
"Employee education must be part of every agency's privacy and information security program. So, how do you craft a privacy program that effectively educates your agency's work force from the chief executive to interns?"
DHS traveler screening system under fire from privacy advocates
Government Executive - September 28, 2007
"The Homeland Security Department has been using the ATS [Automated Targeting System] for several years to perform risk assessments on the 120 million people who seek to enter the United States annually through all forms of travel; almost 90 million by air."
Emergency responders to have online info source
Federal Computer Week - October 1, 2007
"Emergency responders nationwide will soon have access to vital information via a single online source. The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded a contract...to set up FEMA's Emergency Management Information Management System (EMIMS) as a repository for emergency management information."
Privacy, IT officers come together to create policy
Federal Computer Week - September 26, 2007
"The Bush administration's effort to improve how agencies protect personally identifiable information and report breaches has pushed federal privacy and information technology officers to work together, according to federal privacy and data security executives."

News Archive: October 2007

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