Careers
Information Technology
Our Work
Recent Accomplishments
Ongoing Projects
Key Contacts
Our Work
Information technology (IT) can be a key element of management reform, dramatically reshaping government to make it more responsive and efficient. Today’s rapid technological change and innovation, including the growth of the Internet, offer unprecedented opportunities to use IT to enhance government service to citizens by improving performance and reducing costs. These opportunities, however, create great challenges. The Information Technology team leads GAO’s efforts to help the government address these important challenges by working to build the government’s capacity to manage IT and to manage the collection, use, and dissemination of information in an era of rapidly changing technology. We also seek to strengthen information security and to protect the computer and telecommunications systems that support the nation’s vital infrastructures.
We assist Congress in assessing and improving the government’s substantial IT investments—including high-risk modernization efforts—and we continue to develop and expand best practice methodologies that are used across government to guide IT investment decision making. We also seek to improve how the government collects and manages its information and to better protect the security and privacy of government data in light of the nation’s growing dependence on complex and interconnected computer and telecommunications systems. To do this, our specialists perform work at federal agencies across the country.
Recent Accomplishments
- Helping Congress, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, determine the effectiveness of the government’s use of IT to combat terrorism.
- Identifying computer security and network vulnerabilities to mitigate risks at federal agencies and improve the government’s ability to respond to cyberattacks and intrusions.
- Helping the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) strengthen its management of strategic plans and efforts to consolidate and integrate approximately 700 IT systems and supporting organizations of the 22 component agencies merged within the department in 2003.
- Promoting effective governmentwide development and use of enterprise architectures.
- Helping Congress reach a balanced view of the complex management and technical challenges involved in the transition to e-government and development of key tools.
- Working with various agencies to strengthen the management of their complex multibillion-dollar IT modernization programs.
- Identifying impediments to the government’s transition to new, more cost-effective long-distance telecommunications contracts—valued at over $1 billion—and recommending ways to overcome them.
- Developing tools to assist agencies in improving the way billions of IT dollars are invested and managed annually in support of federal agencies’ business operations.
- Identifying the challenges associated with managing and preserving electronic records to help the government develop an advanced electronic records archive.
Ongoing Projects
- Assessing the challenges associated with implementing new technologies, such as wireless networks, and the new tools available for securing these systems.
- Evaluating government efforts to address emerging cybersecurity threats, strengthen homeland defense, and ensure the continuity of government computer and telecommunications systems that support the nation’s critical infrastructures.
- Reviewing the government’s progress in planning and implementing the transition to Internet Protocol version 6.
- Promoting the Department of Defense’s (DOD) implementation of a departmentwide enterprise architecture for modernizing its 4,000-plus business systems.
- Assessing security and reliability concerns for electronic voting systems and the federal and state actions under way to address them.
- Determining whether the billions of dollars that DOD invests in modernizing its systems are managed to minimize risk and maximize benefits.
- Examining the technical challenges faced by the Patent Trademark Office in fully automating its business process and developing electronic file storage capabilities.
- Assessing ways to ensure security for Federal Aviation Administration systems.
Key Contacts
Managing Director: Joel Willemssen
Directors: Randolph C. Hite, Valerie C. Melvin, David A. Powner, Gregory C. Wilshusen
Phone: (202) 512-6408
Mailing Address:
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Information Technology
Room 4T21
441 G Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20548