The app no longer exists. The system was taken offline, a spokesperson for OPM told FedScoop, after a redesign of the regular USA JOBS website incorporated a new, mobile-first design. Today, a page that used to focus on mobile apps like the USA JOBS app redirects to the USAJOBS.gov help center, while a link to usa.gov site touting the system now displays a “Page Not Found” notice. The OPM spokesperson did not say how many used the original app before it was shut down. 

But a fake with a similar name eventually appeared in its place. A “USA JOBS” app was downloaded more than 50,000 times on the Google Play Store, where it had a 2-star rating. The app, which was most recently updated in June, attracted a slew of reviews complaining about it being “misleading,” as well as its advertisements, broken links, and “fake jobs.” Many users complained that the app isn’t associated with the actual USA Jobs website and that their credentials for the actual USAJOBS.gov platform didn’t work. 

Google ultimately took down the app after it was flagged by FedScoop. The system, said company spokesperson Dan Jackson, violated the Play Store’s rules about misleading claims, which specifically ban apps that falsely claim affiliation with a government entity. Still, the existence of this and other fake apps also highlights that government agencies aren’t always tracking down platforms and websites impersonating their services. 

“The official government website for Federal job seekers is https://USAJOBS.gov,” the OPM spokesperson told FedScoop. “Job seekers are encouraged to use the USAJOBS site to search for Federal opportunities. They may also create a USAJOBS profile, create or upload a resume, make their resume searchable by Federal recruiters, and apply for positions.”

Researchers at Stairwell, a cybersecurity firm, didn’t find any overt malicious behavior and noted that the app’s primary purpose seemed to be pulling information that’s freely available on the internet and incorporating a “tremendous amount of advertising.” The app didn’t directly claim to be affiliated with the US government, but took intentional advantage of search terms — they called it “scam-ish.” 

“They might make thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars just getting people to go off as keywords,” Eric Foster, a vice president at Stairwell, told FedScoop. “Lot of times we find that the government both isn’t great at branding, and then they aren’t great at protecting their brand the same way a lot of the corporations are.” 

The researchers said that there’s evidence, based on their analysis of the app, that the developer was in Zambia. FedScoop reached out to the email address listed for the developer, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

Ads like the ones on the USA JOBS app could be a potential vector for malicious activity, the Stairwell researchers noted. The app could also collect personal information, both because it requires that users provide personal information to sign up for an account on the app, and because people may use their actual USAJOBS.gov login credentials when trying to log into the app. 

“In reviews, people were saying they uploaded their resumes. So if you’re uploading your resume, that’s going to include contact information and your work history. That’s not something you would want to give away to just anyone,” Chris St. Meyers, Stairwell’s head of threat research, told FedScoop. “They’re not necessarily malicious intentions, but they’re not good. I don’t know what they’re doing with that information they collect.” 

Similar, but more obviously malicious, sites are an ongoing challenge for the government. The Securities and Exchange Commission warned people on government employee retirement plans that they might be targeted by fraudsters back in 2017. Earlier this year, the United States Postal Service flagged to employees that cyber criminals were attempting to steal their information by creating fake sites. This issue has been an ongoing challenge for employees, according to unions representing these workers.

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While this proposed rule has received less attention, the inclusion of algorithms represents an important example of how Biden administration regulators are hoping to rein in AI. ONC wants to get that final rule out as soon as possible, “perhaps as early as later this year,” an ONC spokesman said in an email.

The proposal — the comment period closed earlier this month — would require electronic health record systems using predictive tools like AI and algorithms to provide users with information about how that technology works, including a description of the data it uses. That would add to a certification process already overseen by ONC.

“The idea is that you should have a standardized nutrition label for an algorithm,” Micky Tripathi, who leads the health IT division housed within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in an interview with FedScoop.

ONC’s certification program for health IT — which includes electronic health record technologies — is voluntary. It’s incentivized, however, by requirements that hospitals and physicians use certified systems when participating in certain Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services payment programs.

While ONC hopes that more transparency will help avoid unintended consequences of algorithmic bias, the rule has received some pushback from medical professionals, health IT companies, and associations for both not going far enough and being too hard to comply with. The division will next review those comments and work on finalizing the rule.

The AI and algorithm requirements are part of ONC’s proposed rule titled “Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Certification Program Updates, Algorithm Transparency, and Information Sharing” (HTI-1), which includes a variety of updates for the division’s Health IT Certification Program.

Specifically, the artificial intelligence portion of the rule would build upon its existing certification requirements for clinical decision support (CDS) systems by defining a new category for predictive tools, which includes AI and algorithms. 

Artificial intelligence presents “a whole new dimension in this area of clinical decision support,” Tripathi said. There are things about AI that are “fundamentally different” and require ONC to again weigh in on how these technologies are incorporated into electronic health records systems, he explained.

ONC doesn’t want to be in the position of telling people they can’t use a particular algorithm, Tripathi said, which is why it’s pointing to transparency as a way to help people “navigate” the technology.

For example, Tripathi said, a user in San Juan, Puerto Rico, might learn that an algorithm in an electronic health record system was trained on data from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and question whether that would be appropriate for their patient population. 

ONC’s emerging approach to AI regulation has won support from a variety of healthcare industry stakeholders, public comments revealed. For example, the College of American Pathologists — a nonprofit with thousands of members — has said that more information about the datasets AI systems are trained on would boost transparency, and also help pathologists with their “AI-related responsibilities.”

Ron Wyatt, the chief scientist and medical officer at the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, said the rule didn’t go far enough, and argued that the information that’s made available to “end users,” like health systems and patients, should also be shared in the public domain — so that it’s “exposed to the expert academic research and developer communities that now are sensitized” to the problems with using AI in healthcare. 

Unsurprisingly, there’s also been pushback. The HIMSS Electronic Record Association, on behalf of 30 companies, has suggested that ONC’s requirements for “decision support interventions” would be hard for electronic health record developers to implement, since — they argue — these tools are often created by third parties. 

The American College of Cardiology, a nonprofit association that credentials cardiovascular professionals, said the algorithms proposal was “overly broad,” could potentially cover “thousands of technology solutions utilized in health care,” and may also be confusing for clinicians dealing with software that’s defined differently by other agencies. 

It’s not yet clear how ONC will incorporate this feedback. Still, the proposal and the feedback it received show the mounting effort to regulate AI across the Biden administration. 

The Office of Science and Technology Policy, for example, has emphasized fighting algorithmic discrimination in the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, which was released in October. The Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have looked at algorithmic bias in systems used to screen tenant applications. Senator Charles Schumer highlighted fighting bias in the SAFE Innovation Framework he introduced earlier this month. 

ONC’s own work on artificial intelligence isn’t limited to the proposed rule. Separately, Tripathi said the ONC is working on the department’s broader efforts to develop AI regulatory strategies and is exploring how to make sure a type of application programming interface (API) used for healthcare interoperability — known as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) — is able to interact with AI. 

“As ONC, and as the HHS, and as the federal government, we want to balance the ability to allow us to continue to have innovation in a really — what we recognize is — a really important space that could offer tremendous benefit at the end of the day,” Tripathi said.

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But, at least from a software perspective, keeping track of crypto is a lot harder than selling a Chagall. For that reason, the law enforcement agency has spent the past few years trying to hire a private tech company to help. But despite settling on contracts with crypto companies, at least two agreements appear to have fallen through. Today, the Marshals Service is still maintaining seized crypto on its own. 

“As the seizure and forfeiture of cryptocurrency has become commonplace, the USMS has sought to create a contract with private industry, just as it does with nearly all other asset types,” a spokesperson for the DOJ’s Asset Forfeiture Division told FedScoop. “Currently there is no private company that manages USMS’s cryptocurrency portfolio.” 

The search for a contractor started several years ago, when the US Marshals Service requested information from companies about the prospect of managing the agency’s cryptocurrency. In April 2021, a company called Bitgo, a crypto security company based in California, won a $4.5 million contract.

But, then, BitGo lost the agreement a few months after the Small Business Administration flagged the company as being too big to meet the contract eligibility. (Back in May, a company called Galaxy Digital had announced it planned to spend $1.2 billion to acquire BitGo, though the deal fell apart afterward.) In July, the Marshals Service hired another company, Anchorage Digital, which is based in San Francisco and also offers cryptocurrency holding services. 

Now, though, the Anchorage Digital contract also appears to have collapsed. As with the BitGo contract, the federal procurement data system shows that a Marshal Service contract with Anchor Labs was “terminate[d] for convenience.” Anchorage Digital is a subsidiary of Anchor Labs, according to its website. The company appears to have taken down a Medium post touting the agreement.

“Both awards were subsequently stayed pending the outcome of protests filed with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), challenging the companies’ business size,” the USMS spokesperson told FedScoop. “Ultimately, SBA determined that both companies were other than small business.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment, though it’s worth noting that the Comptroller of the Currency issued a consent order against the company, which has an OCC banking charter, in 2022.  The Small Business Administration did not provide a comment by the time of publication.

“Not all cryptocurrency seized for forfeiture by the federal government is transferred to the USMS for custody and liquidation,” added the DOJ spokesperson. “The USMS utilizes the best practices and services of private industry to most effectively and securely manage and liquidate all assets in its custody.” 

The USMS has struggled with handling crypto, as a DOJ Office of Inspector General report highlighted last summer. At the time of the report’s publication, the Marshals Service was using multiple spreadsheets to manage its crypto, primarily because digital assets like bitcoin aren’t easily tracked in a DOJ property management program called the Consolidated Asset Tracking System (CATS).

These documents, according to the inspector general, don’t have “inventory management controls” and “documented operating procedures.” Policies for handling, storing, and valuing crypto are also “inadequate or absent, and in some instances provide conflicting guidance.” 

“The USMS’s supplemental spreadsheets do not have the capability to track edits made to the cryptocurrency entries in the USMS’s inventory records,” warned the inspector general. “As a result, these inventory records could be edited or deleted without a record of such a change being made and without the knowledge of individuals responsible for maintaining the spreadsheets.”

In some circumstances, the Marshals Service was “not fully complying” with rules for tracking crypto in CATS, the reported added.

The inspector general also said that the Marshals Service needs to develop more fleshed-out crypto policies before beginning work with a private company, cautioning that “without properly documented policies and procedures, the USMS lacks an adequate foundation for building performance requirements for a cryptocurrency services contract.”

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The app is designed to share information about how to prepare for hazards and recover from a disaster — in part based on where users are located.

About 121,000 people have now gone back into the app and re-selected their location — 90 percent of active users had downloaded the latest app update as of last week— the agency told FedScoop. The 3.0.12 software update was designed to improve the app’s data storage and its protections for users’ personal information.

“Unfortunately, users who updated to 3.0.12 on both iOS and Android, and who had previously saved locations and settings customized for alerts and language, had to make those selections again,” FEMA Press Secretary Jeremy M. Edwards told FedScoop in a statement. “We also discovered that restoring previous settings once users had already re-set them was not possible, and rolling back to a previous version would be disruptive to the hundreds of thousands of users who had already upgraded to version 3.0.12 and did not experience this relatively minor issue.”

FedScoop noticed the issue after reading through the app’s recent reviews on the Google Play Store. On the app store, users had complained about the app failing to update properly, losing their customization preferences, and their alert settings being reset to the platform’s default settings.

The app has been around for more than a decade, according to FEMA, and underwent a major overhaul last summer, when the agency updated its accessibility and functionality.

“FEMA is committed to providing families with the tools and information they need to keep themselves and their loved ones safe from disasters,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said then. “By advancing our mobile app technology, we are better helping communities plan, protect and recover from disasters through clear, effective and relatable communication.” 

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The hope is that the new group, which is expected to include leaders from the private and public sectors, will play a part in cultivating the technology — while also clamping down on its challenges.

The new working group will focus on several objectives related to generative AI, including developing new ways to evaluate and measure the technology’s effectiveness. The group will also help create guidance for using NIST’s AI risk management framework, which was crafted to inform the development of the technology.

Eventually, the group is expected to analyze how generative AI tools could help address some of the biggest challenges facing the country today, including climate change, according to a press release released by NIST on Thursday.

“This new group is especially timely considering the unprecedented speed, scale and potential impact of generative AI and its potential to revolutionize many industries and society more broadly,” Laurie E. Locascio, NIST director and Commerce undersecretary for standards and technology, said in a statement. “We want to identify and develop tools to better understand and manage those risks, and we hope to attract broad participation in this new group.”

The creation of the group represents he latest in the Biden administration’s AI agenda, which seeks to balance the opportunities and challenges created by the technology. The president met with AI experts earlier this week, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his plan to regulate — and develop — AI on Wednesday.

The National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, which was created by NIST last year, released its first report on Thursday, as well.

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Back in 2019, the aviation agency announced a new program called the Privacy International Civil Aviation Organization aircraft address, or PIA, program. The system is designed so that some aircraft can fly under a temporary vehicle address that isn’t directly assigned to the owner registered in the Civil Aircraft Registry — theoretically, anonymizing the vehicle — while also remaining trackable by the FAA, according to the agency.

“Real-time tracking of the geographic location of a specific aircraft is possible, generating privacy concerns for the aircraft operator community,” explains the FAA on its website. The agency adds that PIA is “limiting the extent to which the aircraft can be quickly and easily identified by non-U.S.government entities, while ensuring there is no adverse effect on [air traffic control] services.”

Notably, this is the same program that SpaceX tried to use to prevent the tracking of CEO Elon Musk’s private jet. Vice reported earlier this year that employees at the company did not use the system properly, which eventually enabled the viral (and subsequently banned) Twitter account @ElonJet, which tracked the whereabouts of the billionaire’s aircraft.

The PIA program has received support from organizations that represent the users and manufacturers of private jets. Others, though, see the ability to track these vehicles as a source of transparency and accountability for some of the world’s wealthiest people.

Nevertheless, the PIA program was originally anticipated to be transferred to a third-party provider or providers by the middle of 2020, according to several reports from aviation publications at the time. Jens Henning, the vice president of operations at the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, an aviation trade organization, also said that the FAA had originally indicated the transition would take place in 2020. 

As of now, that transition hasn’t happened. The FAA would not comment on the frequency of user issues with the program in “the interest of privacy.” The agency did not provide a comment on why the transition is running behind by the time of publication.

“The PIA program is currently in Phase 1, with the FAA operating, monitoring and maintaining the service,” an FAA spokesperson told FedScoop. “We are working to transition the service to Phase 2, where a third-party service provider or providers would operate, monitor and maintain it.”

The FAA added: “The Privacy International Civil Aviation Organization (PIA/ICAO) Address (PIA) program will continue without any interruption to users while the FAA investigates the feasibility of transitioning it to a third party. The FAA will base its decision on demand, final requirements and FAA needs.”

Henning, from GAMA, said that the PIA program is one of two systems focused on addressing the privacy of these aircraft. The other is the Limited Aircraft Data Displayed program, a system established back before the PIA program that filters out some information about aircraft before it’s shared with third parties that work with the FAA.

“[T]he aircraft identification is transmitted through ADS-B enabled Mode S transponders to any ground-based receiver — government operated and private networks. This basic aircraft transponder functionality logic was developed in the 1970s and is still core to how an aircraft is identified with a unique address,” said Henning. “The ground receivers are internet-connected, which means an aircraft can be tracked online, which raises security concerns for many aircraft owners as a result of their real-time location being known.”

If and when the FAA transitions the service, there are companies that already provide third-party call signs, and which could serve as providers of the PIA service, according to Henning. Still, this approach may not necessarily be a perfect solution for people looking to completely hide their jets, according to researchers who’ve found that — with enough effort — these vehicles can still be tracked.

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Put simply, quantum computers — with the ability to factor extremely large prime numbers — could one day break into these algorithms, helping adversaries access all sorts of critical information, including personal data about U.S. citizens and critical scientific and military secrets. 

“If we can build large-scale quantum computers that run exactly as physics predicts that they should,” explains Ryan O’Donnell, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, “then they will be able to break most of the cryptography that was in use up until now.” 

The danger isn’t just a future risk. Researchers — and the government — are also concerned about “store now, decrypt later” attacks. These involve hackers accessing critical federal systems now, and then saving these systems until they can have the quantum computing capabilities to decrypt the data held within them. Even this scenario presents a major security problem, argues Jeremiah Blocki, a Purdue computer science professor who researches password security.  

To address this risk, the Office of Management and Budget told federal agencies last November to start preparing. The OMB memo instructed federal agencies to start studying all the systems that may need to be transitioned to post-quantum cryptography (PQC).

By May 4, all federal agencies — excluding the Department of Defense — were supposed to submit an inventory of those systems (and then repeat the process every year) to the Office of the National Cyber Director and DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). During this time, they were also supposed to designate a lead to handle the inventory and the PQC migration, among other goals. 

But a month after that May 4 deadline, it’s not clear how well all federal agencies are keeping up. FedScoop reached out to the more than 20 agencies outlined in the Chief Financial Officers Act, a 1990 law that also spells out the responsibilities of federal chief information officers, and received a range of responses. 

Many of those agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Commerce Department, and Health and Human Services, did say they were up to date on requirements. But others provided unclear responses about their status. Several agencies, including USAID and the departments of Agriculture and Education, said they were unable to share an update. Other agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the Treasury, and the Social Security Administration, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development sent a general statement addressing the agency’s investment in IT and cybersecurity improvements but didn’t directly address whether its staff had created the required inventory or say that it had designed a migration lead. The Small Business Administration, meanwhile, said that it conducts its inventory “as required,” but would only say that a “federal employee” manages the agency’s cryptographic inventory. 

“Agencies have prioritized their systems for migration to post-quantum cryptography,” an OMB official told FedScoop. “OMB and ONCD are working with agencies to ensure accurate cost estimates as we prepare for this transition.”

“The consequences associated with the Snowden leaks or the recent Discord leaks would pale in comparison to the consequences associated with agencies’ failure to comply with the November 2022 Memo on Migrating to Post-Quantum Cryptography,” Sam Howell, a research assistant at the Center for a New American Security’s Technology and National Security Program, told FedScoop in an email. 

“[It’s] important to begin the migration to post-quantum cryptography now because the process could take a long time and entails a lot of challenges,” she added. 

Building an inventory is a critical first step in preparing for post-quantum cryptography, according to the OMB memo. That inventory is supposed to include systems that an agency uses or that are operated on behalf of that agency, including “high impact information” systems and  “high-value assets.”

Next, agencies — excluding the Defense Department and intelligence community agencies — were supposed to start preparing funding assessments aimed at estimating how much the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) migration could cost. 

The White House wants the federal government to transition to PQC systems by 2035. Still, a June report from the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee stated that “an earlier completion date would be highly preferable and should be achievable through vigorous U.S. Government action.”

“I don’t want to presume to tell a federal agency what data they need to protect or should protect,” said Blocki, the computer science professor from Purdue. ”But I can imagine that they’re going to have a lot of data that remain sensitive even 50 years from now.”

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But there’s a problem. The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) — the government program used to track fires throughout the United States— is outdated. The tool, which originally relied on paper-based reports, was created by FEMA in the 1970s. The last time a new form of data was incorporated into the system was in 1995 when the Fire Administration started tracking Emergency Medical Services, or EMS, incidents. The system had its last technology update back in 2002. 

As a result, NFIRS is wonky and ill-equipped for studying and combatting fires of the 21st century. At this point, the system doesn’t allow fire departments to share information about the cause of the fires they encounter, which means the NFIRS only provides a limited amount of information. Another challenge is that only fire departments can access the NFIRS, blocking out other safety researchers from crucial data, said Michael Brooks, chief counsel for the Center for Auto Safety. 

“For me to get data, I have to pull it off [and] put it on a DVD to share it with you,” U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell told FedScoop in a recent interview. “When Congress asks me something now, I have to say: ‘I can’t answer you for yesterday, but I can tell you 2021.’ So you see the problem.”

Now, the U.S. Fire Administration, which functions as a division of FEMA, is readying for a multi-year plan to completely overhaul its approach to fire incident reporting. The idea is to replace NFIRS with a new digital platform, announced in May, called the National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS). 

NERIS is supposed to be technologically sophisticated and will involve machine learning algorithms, a new app for firefighters, and a cloud-based interface that’s far more accessible. The goal is to make national fire incident data more robust — and more useful for dealing with the reality of climate change.

“A lot of the energy transitions happening across the U.S., whether it’s with electric vehicles or […] micro-mobility products, these high energy storage systems all carry with them a lot of unintended fire risk,” Moore-Merrell told FedScoop. “It’s also imperative that we can track wildfires’ movement.” 

But building NERIS won’t be easy. Only some U.S. fire departments submit data to the current NFIRS system, which means only about 70 percent of fires that happen in the U.S. are actually recorded, according to Birgitte Messerschmidt, the research director at the National Fire Protection Association. In some sense, NERIS may mean starting from scratch, since fire departments across the U.S. will need to be onboarded. Firefighters will require training on how to use the new app for sharing data with FEMA.

Notably, the platform will sit outside the federal government and be operated by an outside contractor called Fire Safety Research Institute, a nonprofit arm of UL Solutions, a safety science company based in Illinois. The technology is supported by a contract awarded through DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate program and has $2.2 million in funding for its first year. 

There’s also an ambitious timeline. The U.S. Fire Administration wants to have an initial system ready by early fall, start onboarding fire departments in 2024, and decommission the legacy program by 2025. Moore-Merrell told FedScoop that the program was already “a little behind anticipated,” while Messerschmidt, from the NFPA, called the schedule “optimistic.”

Still, both say the overhaul is critical. For example, the new data system could play a key role in tracking the fires created by batteries, a technology that will be key in stabilizing the electric grid and transitioning to electric vehicles. Right now, federal statistics on EV fires are relatively limited.

NERIS could also provide fire departments with new, real-time data to boost the efficacy of their responses more broadly. To make these improvements possible, NERIS will be set up to incorporate data sets from multiple federal agencies, such as data from the U.S. Census (including the American Housing Survey) and the National Weather Service. The system will also use Internet of Things components and physical sensors. 

But one of the most important parts of the system will be the new app for firefighters. This app, which is also being built by the UL Solutions nonprofit, will allow firefighters to directly input information about incidents from their phones and then send that information back to the NERIS database. The system may eventually incorporate biometrics, which will allow firefighters to volunteer to share health data — like information collected from smart watches — and support firefighting safety research. The Fire Administration also plans to use machine learning to scour emergency data for patterns, which could inform fire chiefs’ response to upcoming incidents. 

“If there’s a drought coming, or we’ve got weather forecasts saying, ‘Hey, it’s gonna be a particular red flag day,’ we can identify ‘Hey, there’s a higher chance of wildland fires so we might need to restructure,’” explains Craig Weinschenk, a principal investigator on NERIS at the Fire Safety Research Institute. He added that any algorithms the system uses will be open source. 

The government is slowly investing in ways to make better use of data collection, while also making that data more accessible. Eventually, researchers — and even Congress — are supposed to be able to request credentials so that they can access the NERIS system online, too. 

In the meantime, Moore-Merrell said that the Fire Administration has not yet settled on a cloud provider for the system.

Time will tell whether FEMA will succeed in building NERIS — and according to schedule. Still, the new software is evidence that the government is investing in ways to make better use of data collection, while also making that data more accessible. 

“What’s becoming far more common is for there to be online data aggregators that pull together several of the raw data sources together and also serve them up visually, in usually a map format to the public,” explains Kendra McLauchlan, a National Science Foundation program manager who focuses on wildfires. “Often, the case is that the raw data are in forms that cannot really be easily seen or used by the public.”

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The proposed program is called the Track Three Pilot Program and would allow “micro entity” applicants — that status is governed by federal rules — to take a 30-month period before paying search or examination fees, provided they meet certain requirements. Applicants could also receive a “obtain a pre-examination search report” before paying an examination fee.

“The USPTO recognizes that under-resourced applicants may need a low-cost option with minimal requirements to allow them additional time for commercialization efforts and to ascertain the value of their inventions,” explained Katherine Vidal, the undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property and the director USPTO  in a post shared to the Federal Register on Friday. 

The pre-examination search report option that the office is considering could involve artificial intelligence. Recently, USPTO incorporated an AI-enhanced tool —which was trained on past patent data —  that allows examiners to analyze how similar an application is to previously-filed domestic and foreign patent documents. Now, the office is considering whether the search results produced by that AI system should be included in a pre-examination report.

The goal, the federal register post said, is “to provide applicants with additional information as they consider potential commercialization and the value of their invention.”

The move comes as the office looks to use AI to accelerate the patent application process. The comment period closes on July 25. 

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The companies involved reflect the range of potential BVLOS applications. One of the drone operations seeking approval is Phoenix Air Unmanned, which uses drones to collect data and conduct power line inspections. Another is UPS Flight Forward, a subsidiary of the package delivery company that primarily focuses on developing drone technology. 

“The FAA recognizes BVLOS operations provide significant safety, societal, and economic advantages and benefits,” said David Boulter, the FAA’s acting associate administrator for aviation aafety, in a request for comment posted to the Federal Register. “[T]he FAA seeks public comments that address how advances in technology, standards, and operational strategies to safely demonstrate UAS BVLOS operations can be applied without adversely affecting safety.”

Right now, these companies need exemptions from existing FAA regulation in order to fly drones beyond pilots’ visual line of sight. But before the FAA grants exemptions that would allow them to move forward, the agency wants input on a range of logistical and safety questions surrounding BVLOS.

For instance, the FAA is looking for guidance on potential “vehicle-to-vehicle communications,” which could help stop drones from colliding with one another. The FAA is looking for input on regulating detect-and-avoid systems performance standards, as well as third-party services that could assist drone operators with their detect-and-avoid systems. Officials want feedback on rules that govern the airspace separating drones and crewed aircraft, too.

A twenty-day comment period opened on Thursday and a final decision is expected later this summer. If cleared, the companies’ projects could guide how the FAA regulates drone operations in the future.

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