The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) announced two new investments today totaling over $9 million that will help the Department of Transportation (DoT) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to improve consumer protection systems.
An $8 million TMF investment will help the DoT to modernize its consumer protection system and better serve air travelers, while a $1.1 TMF million investment will help the FTC secure and modernize a public-facing database that issues registration numbers to U.S. businesses.
“Through our Technology Modernization Fund investment in the FTC, the agency will now be able to retire a legacy system that is costly to maintain and difficult to defend and replace it with an application that will meet today’s security expectations,” Clare Martorana, Federal CIO and chair of the TMF Board, said in a press release.
“In addition, now DoT will be able to work directly with air travelers to design, test, and implement solutions that will meet their needs. This is the unique power of the TMF – to propel government service delivery forward and demonstrate what’s possible,” she added.
The TMF, which is administered by the General Services Administration (GSA), was created in 2017 under the Modernizing Government Technology Act to provide money to Federal civilian agencies to undertake tech modernization projects. The fund in recent months has been spending down some of the $1 billion cash infusion it received from Congress in 2021.
The TMF funding for the DoT will go to the Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP), which will use the investment to enhance its consumer complaint and case tracking application that assists thousands of consumers each year.
The new system will better support air travelers seeking assistance by increasing efficiency and helping OACP track and ensure compliance with aviation consumer protection requirements.
As for the FTC funding, the agency plans to modernize its Registration Number (RN) System, which issues RNs to “U.S.-based businesses to identify who manufactured, imported, distributed, or sold a covered textile, fur, or wool product,” according to the TMF Board.
The FTC will enhance the system by developing a modern, user-friendly cloud application, which will help mitigate security risks.
“The Technology Modernization Fund has been investing in projects for six years that deliver greater security, efficiency, and accessibility to the American people,” said TMF Executive Director Raylene Yung. “Our newest investment in the FTC represents the kind of speed of delivery we aim to achieve, because the problem and solution are well understood and the FTC team is ready to make changes within the next 12 months. Additionally, our investment in DoT will help improve a system accessed by thousands of air travelers each year.”
With these new investments, the TMF now manages over $770 million for 47 investments across 27 Federal agencies.
