NMFS e-signature Working Group

We met July 11, 2008 Meeting Notesin the Amelia Earhart room at Touchstone Consulting.  Present were Karen Sender, Larry Talley, Richard Kang, Susan Molina, Logan Gregory, Dayna Matthews, Tom Gleason, Bob Hogan, Steve Holden and Jared Jonker.

Welcome

  • Larry kicked things off.
    Panel
    • There is a NMFS policy and procedural directive that implements the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA), which says federal agencies can accept e-signatures. Both the law and NMFS policy gives e-signatures them the same validity as a paper signature.
    • As a result, we are working to establish an e-signature program within NMFS.
    • We want to come up with an implementation that will help other programs with the recipe we create in this e-signature working group.

    (More detail on these drivers in Meeting of June 30 2008)

    • While our program was coming along, Susan Molina, with the National Permits System, has come a long ways towards an implementation of eSignature in a specific context.
      • We have been talking about how we can partner.
      • Susan is working to deliver a specific solution
      • We want to expand on her work to develop a broader approach that will hopefully help a wider scope of business-to-government and citizen-to-government eSignature projects.
    • What will we have accomplished by Jan 09?
      • Approved E-Sig implementation plan
      • We will not have done a software development project.
    • What does success look like?
      Panel
      • Understand the E-sig opportunities and challenges
      • Secured approval from the OCIO, General Counsel (GC), and GC Enforcement Litigation
      • Positioned for software development or procurement.

      (More detail in Charter for eSignature Team)

    • E-Signature is not primarily a technical challenge; it's more of a social change challenge.

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