Open Government

Report: Agencies aren't fielding interactive digital forms

A law passed in 2018 requiring executive agencies to make online versions of paper-based forms used by the public, but only a few are fully compliant according to a new report.

  • By Natalie Alms

What we learned about accessibility by scanning more than 2 million federal .gov web pages

For government to effectively tackle the digital accessibility challenge, all agency stakeholders must become accessibility champions.

  • By Luke Fretwell and Mike Gifford

Security clearance demands are exploding and government must keep up

The federal government must evolve security clearance standards to reflect certain cultural realities while also looking to improve clearance reciprocity between agencies.

  • By Gerald E. Connolly

Automating the Plum Book and other Sunshine Week bills

Among the current crop of "Sunshine Week" bills are measures to continually update the Plum Book of federal appointments and to require the president to establish records management controls to store electronic messages in a way that they can later be searched and retrieved.

  • By Natalie Alms

Labor nominee says that unemployment tech needs to be updated

Lawmakers are looking to President Biden's Labor Secretary nominee Marty Walsh for help on modernizing unemployment insurance delivery, worker safety and stimulating growth in STEM jobs.

  • By Natalie Alms

Experts tout election security gains since 2016

While threats to election infrastructure endure, experts are telling the public not to lose sight of the many security gains that have been put in place over the last four years.

  • By Derek B. Johnson

Disinformation on the cheap

Online influence operations are often easy and cheap to set up with open source tooling, according to new research from Cisco Talos.

  • By Derek B. Johnson

Wyden disparages purge at Open Technology Fund

The Oregon Democrat is demanding answers about the circumstances behind a series of abrupt firings at the non-profit Open Technology Fund carried out by a Trump administration official.

  • By Derek B. Johnson

Fighting bots and comment spam

Experts are divided about what constitutes abuse of the comment process during federal rulemaking.

  • By Lia Russell

House panel mulls new election tech specs

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will mark up new legislation Nov. 14 that would mandate new research into voting machine cybersecurity vulnerabilities and update the way the government certifies such equipment.

  • By Derek B. Johnson

One small policy change means a big difference for citizens

The CASES Act is a significant step in the right direction for enhancing the citizen experience. Legislators should use this as a guidepost to rework other outdated policies that were originally intended to protect citizens but are long overdue for a refresh.

  • By Matt Schrader

DOD pushes back on open source

The Government Accountability Office wants the Department of Defense to implement governmentwide open source software requirements, but the Pentagon's top tech official has other plans.

  • By Lauren C. Williams

OMB, GSA to oversee TBM buys

A new review board will to supervise agency procurement of TBM tools and services and make recommendations about acquisition and deployment strategies.

  • By Adam Mazmanian

Transparency through technology

The new House committee on modernizing the legislative branch is turning its attention to making internal operations more transparency through technology.

  • By Chase Gunter
Featured eBooks

Peak census web traffic pegged at 120,000 simultaneous users

The Census Bureau is expecting a maximum of 120,000 concurrent respondents to its internet self-response page during the 2020 population count, but it's preparing for much higher loads.

  • By Chase Gunter

Even with law, open government still depends on those in charge

With the passage of the OPEN Government Data Act, openness is now the default setting for federal data, but success still depends on buy-in at agencies.

  • By Chase Gunter

VA.gov relaunches as front door to benefits, services

The digital services team at VA is managing an effort to unify agency offerings under a single online umbrella.

  • By Adam Mazmanian

Khanna looks to spruce up online government services

Freshman congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has already introduced a bill to give federal websites a facelift and has rolled out 10 principles on data privacy as the "Internet Bill of Rights."

  • By Chase Gunter

Taking point on FOIA

Requesters tasked the U.S. with a record 1 million FOIA requests for fiscal year 2018, but while getting in the front door is easier than ever, getting responses is still a grind.

  • By Chase Gunter

Key open gov deadline nears with no public action

Can stakeholders and activists take this White House at its word that it is sincerely interested in advancing open data and open government policy?

  • By Alex Howard

A new role for government in ID proofing

A new trade group, the Better Identity Coalition, wants government to assume a stronger role in validating online identity.

  • By Adam Mazmanian