Democratic Lawmakers Limit Federal Use of Facial Recognition Technology

Nextgov | June 29, 2020

A bicameral group of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to ban the use of facial recognition technologies by all federal agencies without explicit authorization from Congress. On Thursday, Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., introduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2020. The bill’s long title offers a fuller picture of the lawmakers’ intent: To prohibit biometric surveillance by the federal government without explicit statutory authorization and to withhold certain federal public safety grants from state and local governments that engage in biometric surveillance. For federal agencies, that would mean a blanket ban on the use of “any biometric surveillance system” that uses facial recognition technology or “information derived from a biometric surveillance system operated by another entity,” including another authorized federal agency or through a contracted vendor.

Spotlight

Spotlight

Related News

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY, CYBERSECURITY

Appian Completes IRAP Assessment to Help Australian Government Agencies Automate Their Most Critical Processes

Prnewswire | April 04, 2023

Appian today announced it has completed the Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP), which allows the company to provide cyber security assessment services to Australian government agencies and help them to securely automate their most critical processes. "Appian has a long history of supporting our global base of government customers in heightened security environments. Our IRAP assessment demonstrates our commitment to the Australian public sector and provides additional confidence in using the Appian Platform for their most mission critical business processes," said Jason Adolf, Industry Vice President, Appian. The certification adds to four other new global security certifications for Government achieved in March this year, as well as Appian Protect, which is a new set of security offerings providing trusted data monitoring and end-to-end encryption for cloud and mobile applications, and a whole host of industry-leading compliance accreditations achieved globally. Appian Protect gives Appian customers increased control over their security posture, with top-tier encryption capabilities, 24x7x365 monitoring, and defense-in-depth data protection. "Appian is committed to providing the most trusted platform for complete process automation," said Luke Thomas, Area Vice President Asia Pacific & Japan at Appian. "With our enhanced security offerings, Appian now meets the most rigorous Cloud security and compliance requirements of financial services, healthcare and government agencies." Appian Protect provides access to security features embedded in the Appian Platform, including: Data Loss Prevention (DLP) that alerts on or blocks abnormal user behavior Monitoring with security orchestration and automated response (SOAR) Real-time intrusion detection and monitoring Comprehensive antivirus scans Enterprise-ready authentication and authorisation with single sign-on (SSO) Integration authentication Inbound web API authentication Row-level data fabric security with user access preview Appian has a long history of partnering with Government bodies around the world, dating back to its foundation work in the early 2000s with defense and security agencies. "Appian has an established track record of leading the industry in how sensitive and regulated data is handled, and in easing the burden for organisations needing to prove regulatory compliance," said Michael Beckley, CTO and Founder, Appian. "Our investment in Appian Protect furthers our commitment to the industrial-strength security that enables our customers to achieve significant time and cost savings with confidence." Appian's secure architecture complies with state standards and certifications including SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3, HIPAA, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, Impact Level-5 in US Federal, PCI DSS, FedRAMP, and HITRUST. Most recently, the company achieved State Risk and Authorisation Management Program (StateRAMP), Canada Protected B, UK Cyber Essentials Plus, and Spain's National Security Framework accreditations. About Appian Appian is a software company that automates business processes. The Appian Platform includes everything you need to design, automate, and optimize even the most complex processes, from start to finish. The world's most innovative organizations trust Appian to improve their workflows, unify data, and optimize operations—resulting in better growth and superior customer experiences.

Read More

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

Palantir and Microsoft Expand Cloud Partnership to Public Sector

Prnewswire | April 06, 2023

Palantir Technologies Inc. today announced that Palantir Federal Cloud Service (PFCS) achieved FedRAMP authorization and accreditation to support workloads at U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Impact Level (IL) 4 and DOD IL5 on Microsoft Azure. This new milestone enables U.S. government customers and industry partners to access Palantir and Microsoft's secure, integrated, enterprise-grade capabilities in both Microsoft Azure Government and Azure Commercial environments. This milestone expands Palantir and Microsoft's strategic partnership from the private sector to the public sector bringing the best in class cloud components to the federal marketplace. We're aiming to support IL6 through multi-cloud service integration. "With the successful completion of FedRAMP and IL4 and IL5 accreditation on Microsoft Azure Commercial and Azure Government, Palantir and Microsoft are prepared to bring best in breed solutions to the federal government," said Akash Jain, President, Palantir USG. "Leveraging lessons from our partnership in the commercial sector, we are looking forward to delivering innovation on behalf of the most important US Government missions on an accelerated timeframe. Today's announcement represents an inflection point in our partnership that will benefit our public sector stakeholders. We look forward to launching these joint solutions with our federal partners." In addition to supporting public sector and DoD customers, the Palantir Federal Cloud Service (PFCS) was also designed for the greater Defense Industrial Base. PFCS on Azure Government meets Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) requirements and can support both Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) workloads. "With Palantir Federal Cloud Service's FedRAMP authorization on Microsoft Azure, defense organizations have even more solutions available to them to meet their critical mission needs," said Wes Anderson, Vice President, Defense, Microsoft Federal. "Our focus continues to be on building up our partner ecosystem to accelerate innovation and provide trusted, flexible, and advanced cloud solutions for the national security mission." PFCS FedRAMP authorization on Microsoft Azure can enable expedited agency authorizations to operate (ATOs), this solution is adequate for use in an agency authorization to operate cloud computing products and services. This authorization milestone is representative of Palantir's ongoing commitment to servicing federal customers on Azure. Those interested in learning more about Palantir and Microsoft's relationship can visit the Palantir website or get started today via the Azure Marketplace. About Palantir Technologies Inc. At Palantir, we're helping the world's most important institutions use their data to solve their most urgent problems. Our software lets our customers integrate and analyze all of their data so they can answer questions that they couldn't before. From delivering disaster relief to building safer automobiles, we're honored to help make our partners better at their most important work.

Read More

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

EncompaaS LLC and Forefront Technologies Form Reseller and Professional Services Partnership to Bring Next Generation Data Governance

prnewswire | May 22, 2023

EncompaaS LLC, a leading SaaS provider of data governance and analytics solutions, announced a reseller and professional services partnership with Forefront Technologies, a technology solutions provider based in Burlington, North Carolina. This new partnership will bring data discovery, governance and analytics solutions to Forefront's portfolio of offering to clients around the world. With this partnership, Forefront Technologies will now be able to offer EncompaaS competencies in data discovery and classification, governance, and analytics to clients seeking to understand and utilize their corporate data for better business outcomes. Massive growth of data across the corporate environment, in structured, semi structured and unstructured formats, has paralyzed most organizations' ability to understand and derive insight from the information they create. The EncompaaS platform provides a unified solution that enables businesses to gain value from their information and improve efficiency. "We are thrilled to partner with Forefront Technologies and bring our competencies to Forefront's client base," said Jesse Todd, CEO of EncompaaS. "Forefront's deep expertise in delivering technology solutions to businesses in the region makes them an ideal partner for us. Together, we will provide clients with the capabilities they need to understand, govern and gain insights into the large data sets they manage." "We are excited to partner with EncompaaS to provide our clients with best-in-class data discovery and analytics solutions," said Randall Smith, Vice President of Sales at Forefront Technologies. "As more and more businesses struggle with understanding and managing their data, the need for comprehensive data governance and analytics solutions has never been greater. The EncompaaS platform will add to our information governance portfolio to enable our clients to maximize the value of their information." About EncompaaS LLC: EncompaaS LLC is a leading provider of data discovery, governance and analytics solutions, enabling businesses to govern, secure, and optimize their information environments. The EncompaaS platform provides a unified solution for managing and analyzing information on premises and in multi-cloud environments, enabling businesses to derive better business outcomes and improve efficiency. About EncompaaS LLC EncompaaS LLC is a leading provider of data discovery, governance and analytics solutions, enabling businesses to govern, secure, and optimize their information environments. The EncompaaS platform provides a unified solution for managing and analyzing information on premises and in multi-cloud environments, enabling businesses to derive better business outcomes and improve efficiency.

Read More