Industry Groups Call On White House To Reaffirm Commitment To ‘technology Neutrality

The leaders of two technology industry lobbying groups wrote to White House information and technology officials asking them to reaffirm the Biden administration's commitment to "technical neutrality," FedScoop has learned.

In a Feb. 3 letter obtained by FedScoop, Software Alliance Policy Director Henry Yang and Enterprise Cloud Coalition Executive Director Andrew Howell said government agencies should have access to private sector digital identity tools to help combat identity theft.

They write: “In a world where neither industry nor government alone can address an ever-changing set of challenges, public-private partnerships have proven to be the most effective approach to enhance the cybersecurity of both organizations and improve the digital ecosystem.”

“Efforts to bring tools such as multi-factor authentication into the marketplace must be supported by effective partnerships with their developers. In support of this commitment, we are asking the administration to reaffirm the US government's long-standing policy of technology neutrality," they added in the letter.

Technology neutrality, also often referred to as technology agnosticism, is a term used by the federal government to describe an approach to procurement that considers IT solutions solely in terms of their merits and value to the American taxpayer.

The announcement comes as the Biden administration is preparing to issue a Digital Theft Executive Order in the coming weeks, which is expected to introduce new measures to prevent and detect public goods-related identity theft.

Part of the order is expected to focus on using the government's identity management platform Login.gov, according to two people familiar with the directive.

Federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, have pledged to use this service in conjunction with commercial authentication solutions such as ID.me.

The use of the platform has drawn criticism from some in the industry due to concerns that it will not allow other commercial identity management solutions to be used.

Under the US Code of Federal Regulations, agencies are already required to implement the single sign-on platform developed by the General Services Administration. However, until now its use has not been sanctioned by the White House.

The letter was addressed to National Cyber ​​Security Director Chris Inglis, Deputy National Security Adviser for Information and Emerging Technologies Ann Neuberger, and Biden Administration Senior Advisor Gene Sperling.

According to a notice in the Federal Register, Login.gov removed references to NIST standards in December and instead used simple descriptions of the platform's authentication and identity verification process.

Login.gov is a record system defined by the Privacy Act of 1974 as a set of records from which information is retrieved by a person's name or any number, symbol, or other unique identifier assigned to that person.

Commenting on the letter, BSA policy director Henry Young said: “BSA has joined the association partners in sending this letter as it advocates a technology neutral approach. The U.S. government should not choose a specific industry-developed solution or a government-developed solution, as this hinders the innovative approaches to cybersecurity that are needed in an ever-changing cyber threat environment.”

President Obama addresses the General Assembly