As more and more information is provided and stored online, government sites should both prevent the unintended disclosure of and unnecessary
gathering of customers' personally identifiable information for those who access government data and websites on the internet.
I'm a financial aid officer at a small, Northeastern technical college that serves a primarily older, low-income population. Since a significant portion of our students aren't that computer literate, they don't realize they're getting cheated by bogus URL's, such as FAFSA.com, FAFSA.net, etc, which ask for credit card information, and charge upwards of $80, for the FREE Application for Federal Student Aid [FAFSA]. ...more »
While I agree with the suggestion of Richard Mayo to support current and -1 versions of popular browsers, my concern is a bit more generic with a security twist. I had this problem a few years ago with a government e-commerce web app called WAWF, managed by DISA. Here were my concerns then: I was helping my father with a long-term problem he was having with this new electronic proposal and payment system. Unlike the ...more »
Based on how sites or tools are created or used, customers may need to provide or allow their activities to be captured online by affiliated or unaffiliated third parties,including click-stream data and search queries and results. These can allow these third parties to infer information about them.
almost every TLD (top level domain) space has a WHOIS database with basic ownership and contact info for every domain. for some reason a few years ago the WHOIS database for all .GOV names was filtered and now displays almost nothing. In addition to major pages having a CONTACT US item, WHOIS data can also be very useful. If security is a concern, the team at www.dotgov.gov could develop an account system where vetted ...more »
Much data, such as birth certificates, is public but should not be readily available to everyone. Before computerization such records were protected by the difficulty in accessing them. Now databases are created so that corporations can mail advertising to all blue eyed Hispanics born on a Wednesday. I think it is a good idea to make most government records public but there should be some control and limitation ...more »