Floppy disks? You’ve got to be kidding!
When you learn that some agencies of the United States federal government are still using floppy disks – a relic from the 1980’s – it’s not hard to understand why the HealthCare.gov website was such a disaster.
According to a report by Jada Smith, a reporter for The New York Times, The Federal Register, is a daily journal of around 100 executive orders, proclamations, proposed rule changes and other government notices the United States government publishes on its website and in a thick booklet that federal agencies are mandated to submit for public inspection. And guess what? Some of that information still comes in on 3.5-inch plastic storage squares that have become all but obsolete in the United States and other developed countries around the world.
Today’s computers do not even accommodate floppy disks but The Federal Register continues to accept them, in part because legal and security requirements have yet to be updated because the government moves so slowly. The Federal Register still requires agencies to submit information on paper, with original signatures, though they can create a digital signature via a secured email system.
In her report for the Times, Smith writes: “Agencies are also permitted to submit the documents on CD-ROMs and floppy disks, but not on flash drives or SD cards. “The Federal Register Act says that an agency has to submit the original and two duplicate originals or two certified copies,” said Amy P. Bunk, The Federal Register’s director of legal affairs and policy. As long as an agency does that through one of the approved methods of transmission, she said, “they’ve met the statutory requirement.”
Read this full and somewhat shocking story.