Administration Dials into Demand for Mobile Federal Data
The White House pushed a new federal initiative Wednesday to make government information more accessible through open source mobile applications that deliver federal data to citizens’ mobile devices. Led by federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel, the administration’s digital government strategy (http://xrl.us/bm865p) will require each federal agency to make at least two of its services available to citizens on mobile devices within 12 months.
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President Barack Obama said: “Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device. By making important services accessible from your phone and sharing government data with entrepreneurs, we are giving hard-working families and businesses tools that will help them succeed.”
The idea is to encourage a “crawl, walk, run approach to get agencies to build mobile apps,” VanRoekel said. “We hope to ignite a mobile wave of innovation.” The goals of the strategy are to increase the availability of federal information and services, ensure the smart and affordable federal procurement of devices, and spur private sector innovation by unlocking federal data. The strategy also aims to ensure the security and privacy of federal data through the use of trusted Internet connections, continuous monitoring, and National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace-approved authentication measures.
VanRoekel acknowledged America’s looming spectrum crunch and told reporters during a conference call following the announcement that the U.S. government needs to think about “smart spectrum management.” “It’s definitely a conversation we want to have with the owners of that responsibility in the government, the FCC, NTIA and the Commerce Department. ... I think America as a country is going to be faced with a spectrum crunch and we need to look at opportunities there. The White House works closely with the Commerce Department and NTIA and then follows closely what is happening in the commercial market with the FCC.”
CTIA separately urged the administration, in a statement following the announcement, to “remain focused” on getting more spectrum for the U.S. wireless industry. “While the 500 MHz of spectrum that the FCC’s National Broadband Plan identified for our members will help improve coverage and capacity for wireless consumers, it will also add at least 350,000 new jobs and generate at least $166 billion in U.S. GDP,” said CTIA CEO Steve Largent.
The administration’s digital strategy also aims to consolidate the federal government’s nearly 40,000 websites, VanRoekel said. “A lot of underpinning of the strategy is about culling cost and culling waste from the system,” he said. “We have about 450 million pages in the federal family online,” he said. “There is a lot of opportunity out there to cull through all this duplication and save money.”