| Thomas
Hughes - Social Security Administration
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM:
Anybody who spends any time poking around on your Web site
very quickly realizes that it’s a pretty user-friendly
interface. Are you one of the leaders, do you think, among
government agencies when it comes to e-Gov initiatives?
HUGHES: At our Web site, a citizen can plan for retirement,
apply for retirement, they can use a direct deposit approach
using our Web site and they can change their address for the
check delivery on our Web site. We think we’re a leader
in the federal government.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: Last time I poked around on
your site, there was a banner ad that said “Declare
your independence. Retire online.” I think you just
gave me the big picture there with that last answer, but that’s
an awfully ambitious proposition. What exactly do you mean
by that?
HUGHES: What Social Security is trying to
do is to use our site to look to the future in terms of their
retirement efforts. Social Security is just one leg of helping
citizens retire in the future. What we’d like is for
citizens to visit our site and begin to use our services online.
That helps us, both from our 1,400 office perspective in that
people begin to use technology that’s at their fingertips
at their home, and it allows them to declare their independence,
to understand what they can expect in the future from Social
Security.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: Let’s talk specifics.
Walk me through one or two specific examples of what I could
do if I went to your Web site right now.
HUGHES: Let’s say you’re 60
years old and you want to consider retiring when you’re
65. If you go to our Web site, there are two or three different
approaches to retirement planning, whether you have the information
or don’t have the information. You can put the information
into our system. We can then estimate at the age of 65 what
your retirement benefits would be. And you can actually apply
so that when you’re 65 you will get information from
Social Security.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: Give me one or two more examples
of some of the things I can access and do online.
HUGHES: Let’s say you’re 65 years old
and you are receiving a check from Social Security. You can
go to our Web site and, with a knowledge-based information
approach, you change the direct deposit of the bank or you
can actually change the address of where you want the check
mailed. It’s your choice, but you can do it online.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: I’m thinking of my mother,
who’s far on the other side of retirement, but probably
wouldn’t be technologically savvy enough to do this.
But we’re talking about baby boomers now, and does that
kind of make this demographic a little more technology-friendly
and you’re trying to capitalize on that?
HUGHES: We recognize that the baby boomers
will be using the system more as the years go on. But we’re
also finding that a lot of retired people have access to computers.
If someone sitting in North Dakota has to drive 100 miles
to a Social Security office, they’d much rather do it
online. People will then access our Web site. That’s
what we’re trying to encourage people to do.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: You’re talking about some
very personal information here. How do you address the security
concerns that are raised by a site like this?
HUGHES: If you think of security, there
are different aspects that you’re considering. There
are different forms of IT security, but what we’re talking
about here is authenticating people. If we have information
from past experience of working with individuals, then we
can understand the levels of risk and the level that we allow
certain changes to occur online. Sometimes you might need
to call our 800 number, sometimes you may need to receive
something in the mail, or sometimes you may be able to do
it online.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: When I talk to your counterparts,
CIOs at other agencies, they say they’re seeing a lot
of threats and a lot attempts. What are you gauging there
at SSA as far as attempts and maybe even successful attacks?
HUGHES: For Commissioner Barnhardt, security
is number one here. It is a culture. It is a culture in both
or 1,400 offices and at our Web site, in our mainframes, in
our Unix environment. We experience threats everyday. But
if you look at it from an IT security perspective, our information
is not sitting out on the Web for people to access. It’s
really back in several layers of security. While the Internet
can be a dangerous area, we do not keep our information on
the Internet.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: Different topic here. Let me
ask you about your dealings with vendors and contractors.
We know agencies are giving more and more work to outside
contractors. What advice would you have for the myriad of
IT contractors to set them apart in the eyes of a chief information
officer?
HUGHES: Vendors are critical to our business.
We use them strategically to help us improve our Web site
and work with our information technology as contractors. The
one piece of advice that I would give to vendors is to learn
the business of your client. For example, if you think Social
Security is just about retirement planning our just about
the Internet, it’s not. It’s much more complicated
than that. So if vendors are going to try to do business with
any CIO or federal agency, learn the details as much as possible
about that agency before you come and talk to the CIO.
FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM: Anything we didn’t talk
about this morning that you hoped we’d get a chance
to get to?
HUGHES: I would like every listener to go
to social security.gov I’d like for them to put in their
Social Security Number to find out about what their possibility
in terms of retirement benefits might be. They should be receiving
something in the mail and they should be contacting the Social
Security Administration if they’re not. So, go to social
security.gov, plan your retirement and let us know what you
think.
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