NASCIO Releases Federal Priorities: Modernizing Regulations, Cybersecurity, and Collaboration are Essential for States

WASHINGTON, D.C., Wednesday, January 16 – The National Association of State Chief Information Officer’s (NASCIO) released its 2013 federal advocacy priorities today. NASCIO hopes to put a spotlight on modernizing outdated federal rules and regulations, bolstering our nation’s cybersecurity, building a public safety broadband network, and pushing greater collaboration to expand the maturity and use of information exchange models and secure identities in cyberspace. The 2013 Federal Advocacy Priorities are now available at www.nascio.org/advocacy/current/.

With technology and telecommunications evolving faster than our federal rules and regulations, NASCIO is looking to work with our federal partners to ensure our citizens’ tax dollars are not being wasted due to regulations that do not complement current technologies and best practices in information technology management.

“Cloud services are something our children are using and lightning fast information exchange is a simple click away. It’s past time to modernize how federal agencies work with states to deliver key services from Medicare benefits to homeland security,” explained NASCIO President Brenda Decker, Chief Information Officer for the State of Nebraska. “Current federal requirements and directives mean that states must spend hundreds of millions to build and support duplicative systems. State CIOs know that simple reforms could not only save billions in taxpayer dollars, but also provide better service delivery to the American people.”

In addition, our state CIOs want to build upon current collaboration with the federal government in a number of areas. The most pressing of these is to expand and mature collaboration on cybersecurity.

“There have been 94 million cases in which personal information has been exposed to potential identity theft through data breaches at government agencies since 2009, with a 680 percent increase in cyber threats against those systems in the last 5 years,” Mitch Herckis, Director of Government Affairs for NASCIO. “There is no more significant issue to state CIOs than keeping our citizens safe and their personal information secure—but we need greater collaboration and support from the federal government to deter the increasing threats.”

State CIOs are also looking to collaborate with the federal government on building a nationwide public safety broadband communications network, expanding the adoption of the national information exchange model to facilitate better collaboration across all levels of government, and working in partnership to provide employees and citizens with secure identities in cyberspace.