Civil liberties groups filed a complaint against the Baltimore Police Department on Tuesday, asking the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the department’s use of cellphone tracking devices, which are used in 24 states and the District of Columbia. The Baltimore police, along with other law enforcement agencies, are using stingrays, which are devices that mimic […]
To become “Future Ready,” city governments must focus on fostering and leveraging technological innovation in their local area, according to experts at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) panel on Monday. “Cities that are embracing future ready, we notice that they are data-driven,” said Christy McFarland, research director for the National League of Cities. […]
Rural areas hoping for Internet access faced a setback Wednesday, when a Federal court decided that the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t have the power to block state laws that hinder access to cheap, publicly managed broadband service. However, electric companies in Oklahoma and Massachusetts are providing broadband to rural communities by addressing Internet as a […]
The Hillary Clinton campaign is building on President Obama’s efforts in 2012 to create an edge over Donald Trump by using data mining to influence voters and affect the course of the presidential election. Data mining can target individuals and tailor political advertisements to show voters what they’ll most likely want to hear about. For […]
The FBI has launched a campaign to improve industry reporting to its Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3) in major cities across the United States. “IC3 is often the first piece of the investigative puzzle. We receive victim complaints and then analyze, aggregate, and exploit those complaints to provide law enforcement with comprehensive reports that can […]
The Obama administration is working on a plan to elevate the status of the United States Cyber Command and separate it from the National Security Agency, according to Reuters. U.S. Cyber Command will focus on developing cyber weapons to punish hackers and combat adversaries such as ISIS. After this transition, U.S. Cyber Command would become […]
An emergency responder trying to extinguish a wildfire in California can now receive immediate advice from a topography researcher at a remote university. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced on Monday the Next-Generation Incident Command System (NICS). NICS is a Web-based platform that can be accessed on mobile devices; […]
When Illinois deployed its first state computer system in 1974, Hardik Bhatt was just 2 years old. Since then, Illinois has deployed thousands of systems–one for every 20 of the state’s 60,000 employees, to be exact–with little or no thought given to how they should all work together. Forty-two years later, Illinois’ IT challenges have […]
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday made moves to ban sex offenders from playing Pokémon Go. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision will prevent registered sex offenders under supervision from downloading, accessing, or playing Pokémon Go and other similar interactive games. “Protecting New York’s children is priority No. 1 and, as technology evolves, […]
Since 2003, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has settled HIPAA violations to the tune of $36 million, with the two most recent settlements coming from Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. HIPAA protections are granted by three separate, yet related, rules. The first one, the HIPAA Privacy Rule, […]
