Today, GSA released its latest policy memo, a guidance document for agencies and cloud service providers, describing the general Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the FedRAMP, the government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud-based services. The release of this guidance is timely, with GSA’s Dave McClure joining us at our Cloud/GOV Conference next Thursday.
In the Senate, indications this week are that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing next week on cybersecurity legislation. The legislation is still expected to be introduced later this week or early next, and drafts continue to circulate. While Majority Leader Reid signaled in late 2011 his intention for the Senate to consider legislation in this first legislative work period, it’s now clear that this will be pushed back slightly, at least until after the President’s day recess.
And the pressure will begin mounting on House and Senate negotiators to reach a deal to extend the payroll tax cut currently set to expire at the end of the month. Again, extension of the key technology industry R&D tax credit, as well as broader corporate tax reform, will be linked to these discussions, along with other critical “extenders.” The R&D tax cut has been expired since late 2011, on of 14 times it has been allowed to expire in its 30-year history.
Last week, SIIA submitted comments to the FTC in response to their request for input on facial recognition technology. In offering to work with the Commission as they map out an approach for making sure that the public is able to benefit from the further development and deployment of these innovative techniques while still preserving privacy, SIIA urged the to recognize that it has at hand a workable general framework for evaluating and considering the privacy implications of facial recognition technology.
David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.