Resources for Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)

Industry hoping for action on data security bill this year

www.govexec.com

The window for advancing a comprehensive federal data security bill is closing, but stakeholders are holding out hope that narrowly crafted proposals to improve government information security compliance and fight cybercrime might still get traction this spring.

A joint hearing of two House Oversight and Government Reform Committee panels Thursday examined one such bill, introduced last year by Information Policy Subcommittee Chairman William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., and co-sponsored by Government Management Subcommittee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. The legislation, which Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has also supported, would update the six-year-old Federal Information Security Management Act to establish requirements for securing personal or sensitive data.

The bill proposes a broader definition of "personally identifiable information"; strengthened reporting and auditing requirements, and calls for privacy impact assessments for agency purchases of lists containing potentially sensitive information from commercial data brokers.

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