Department of Transportation (DoT) Secretary Pete Buttigieg has always said that safety is the agency's “north star.” Security is no longer possible without cybersecurity, according to the ministry's cyber and IT officials.
DoT Chief Information Officer Cordell Schachter said this week that “it is no longer possible to separate cybersecurity” from the department's safety mission.
“Our systems have to be available 24/7. People have to have a high level of trust in themselves. They have to do their jobs with integrity and accuracy,” Schachter said in May. This was stated at the GDIT webinar on the 2nd.
“And it's clear that as technology develops, and artificial intelligence is just one such area, we need to build it into already highly available and reliable environments. “We need to make sure that not only our staff, but also the people we trust, feel safe.''We know they can trust our work,'' he said.
The CIO said one of the DoT's biggest challenges when implementing emerging technologies such as AI is the department's technical debt.
“We have a lot of technical debt, basically old systems, and we can't really protect them unless we take special measures,” Schacter said. “When confronting hostile countries that are increasingly becoming nation-states, we want to be in the forefront, not in the hindsight.”
“And old systems that were invented in a time when those kinds of threats didn't exist aren't necessarily capable of dealing with these new threats. So it's important to introduce new technologies to encapsulate them. and you can spend money on the same old system again,” he said. “[But] Those systems may not be suitable for new features or new applications. ”
“So, just like with cybersecurity, it's best to have a serious plan to reduce technical debt, both to improve security and to prepare for next-generation technology,” Schacter said.
The DoT CIO emphasized that while the federal government should be a leader in emerging technologies such as AI, it also has a responsibility to manage risks.
“We've seen this new method of starting fires (which could have many productive purposes) right after someone invented it without really putting up guardrails to make sure it was safe. They don't necessarily want to rush to release these things to the public. “We were instructed to start setting fires to our own homes,” Schacter said.
He said the DoT's strategy is to use sandboxes to test new technologies, so the department is “less susceptible to unintended negative impacts.” Schachter emphasized that government agencies release technology from the lab only when it is fit for purpose and use.
“These applications will go through the same governance process that we use for all our IT applications before going live,” the CIO said. “Although this is a very well thought out approach, in our environment it can have unintended consequences resulting in loss of life and serious injury.”
