Tag: Agencies

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Madison City Council bans city agencies from using facial recognition technology | Local Government

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City-County Building file stock photo


CAPITAL TIMES ARCHIVES


The Madison City Council banned late Tuesday city agencies, including the Madison Police Department, from using facial recognition technology and also pushed back a decision on Edgewood High School’s latest effort to install lights at its athletics field.

On a 17-2 vote, the council approved a new ordinance that prohibits city agencies, departments and divisions from using facial recognition technology or “information derived from a face surveillance system” with a handful of exceptions.

Following a national reckoning this year on over-policing in communities of color, Madison and other governments have scrutinized and limited the use of face surveillance systems by law enforcement.

“The technology has proven to be unreliable and faulty,” Ald. Rebecca Kemble, 18th District, said of facial recognition, describing the ban more as a moratorium. “We also don’t want this technology to be used to further worsen the racial

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future technology

How the pandemic changed the future of work for government agencies

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Written by

FedScoop Staff
Nov 18, 2020 | FEDSCOOP

In order to keep social service programs running and agencies operable during the lockdown, government leaders learned that being too cautious about updating their infrastructure had handicapped their ability to deliver on their mission.

The insights come from a series of interviews — assembled in a new report — in which agency leaders shed light on how the pandemic has accelerated their agencies’ plans to adopt cloud- and AI-enabled tools.

future-ready
Read the full report.

The report, “Pandemic Fast-Tracks Plans for Future-Ready Government,” produced by FedScoop and StateScoop and underwritten by Google Cloud, highlights agencies’ response to resolving infrastructure and scaling challenges in order to stand-up a remote workforce and better service constituents.

When millions of citizens’ lives were disrupted, they turned to the government online for answers. However, websites and other digital services weren’t built to meet these high demands. The

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future technology

WPP CEO Says Merging Company’s Iconic Agencies Will Bring ‘Creativity And Technology Together’

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As WPP prepares to merge two of its iconic advertising agencies, the company’s CEO says there has “never has been a better time to bring creativity and technology together.”

Last week, London-based WPP said it would merge Grey and AKQA into a single company called AKQA Group. With 6,000 people in 50 countries, it will create a “new network model,” according to the company. And earlier today, WPP announced yet another agency consolidation by folding Geometry into VMLY&R to create a new “creative commerce company.”

“We have always said we have fewer, stronger brands,” WPP CEO Mark Read says about combining Grey and AKQA, adding that “it is important for every company to have a growth trajectory.”

The merger is a part of WPP’s multiyear effort to streamline its agencies within the

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technology articles

FBI: Hackers stole source code from US government agencies and private companies

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FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has sent out a security alert warning that threat actors are abusing misconfigured SonarQube applications to access and steal source code repositories from US government agencies and private businesses.

Intrusions have taken place since at least April 2020, the FBI said in an alert sent out last month and made public this week on its website.

The alert specifically warns owners of SonarQube, a web-based application that companies integrate into their software build chains to test source code and discover security flaws before rolling out code and applications into production environments.

SonarQube apps are installed on web servers and connected to source code hosting systems like BitBucket, GitHub, or GitLab accounts, or Azure DevOps systems.

But the FBI says that some companies have left these systems unprotected, running on their default configuration (on port 9000) with default admin credentials (admin/admin).

FBI officials say that threat

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U.S. Agencies Question FCC Plan to Shift Auto Spectrum to Wi-Fi | Technology News

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Transportation and Treasury departments raised strong objections to a plan proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to shift much of a key spectrum block set aside for auto safety to accommodate the burgeoning number of wireless devices.

Documents reviewed by Reuters show strong pushback against the plan. The Transportation Department said the FCC plan is “a particularly dangerous regulatory approach when public safety is at stake.”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said this week the commission will vote Nov. 18 to finalize a plan to divide the 5.9 GHz spectrum block reserved in 1999 for automakers to develop technology to allow vehicles to talk to each other and traffic infrastructure, but has so far gone largely unused.

Pai would shift 30 megahertz of the 75 megahertz reserved for Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) to enable a different automotive communications technology called Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything, or C-V2X, while

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FBI, other agencies warn of ‘imminent cybercrime threat’ to U.S. hospitals

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Federal agencies are warning of “an increased and imminent cybercrime threat” to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers, including so-called ransomware attacks.



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The warnings were in a report released Wednesday, and authorities say that healthcare providers should take precautions to protect their systems.

The federal report says that the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have credible information about the threat.

The agencies say they have assessed that people are targeting the health sector with Trickbot malware, which in addition to data theft can result in ransomware attacks. Trickbot, among other illegal actions, can be used to deploy ransomware like Ryuk, a derivative of another type of ransomware.

With Trickbot, the malicious software typically is embedded in an email designed to fool the recipient into clicking on a link or document that then installs the malware.

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technology articles

SAIC Launches R3 Solution Suite to Help Government Agencies Respond to New Demands Presented by the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Company announces portfolio of six solutions to help customers Respond, Recover, and Restructure in light of new work methods and requirements

Science Applications International Corp. (NYSE: SAIC) today announced the availability of the SAIC R3 portfolio of solutions designed to help federal government customers meet new work challenges and opportunities related to remote work, resiliency, and digital government services resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SAIC R3 solutions – available now – are designed to help the government Respond, Recover, and Restructure by addressing the life cycle of challenges that organizations now face. The solutions can help agencies create intelligent and resilient workplaces of the future; seamlessly and securely enable remote workers; rapidly apply digital technology to overcome legacy constraints; quickly deploy mobile emergency operations to ensure continuity: build reliable supply chains and improve logistics to address critical needs; and focus on their most important assets – their people.

The

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