Year 2000 Computing Crisis

Electronic data exchanges are used extensively to transfer information between computer systems. Consequently, as computer systems are converted to process Year 2000 dates, the associated data exchanges must also be made Year 2000 compliant. This report identifies (1) the key actions taken so far to address electronic data exchanges among federal, state, and local governments; (2) the steps taken by the federal government to minimize the adverse economic impact of noncompliant Year 2000 data from other countries' information systems corrupting critical functions of the United States; and (3) international forums where the worldwide economic implications of this issue have been or could be addressed.

GAO noted that: (1) key actions to address year 2000 data exchange issues are still in the early stages; however, federal and state coordinating organizations have agreed to use a 4-digit contiguous year format and establish joint federal and state policy and working groups; (2) to implement these agreements, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued instructions in January 1998 to federal agencies to inventory all data exchanges with outside parties by February 1, 1998, and coordinate with these exchange partners by March 1, 1998; (3) at the time of GAO's review, no actions had been taken to establish target dates for additional key tasks; (4) about half of the federal agencies reported during the first quarter of 1998 that they have not yet finished assessing their data exchanges to determine if they will be able to process data with dates beyond 1999; (5) two of the 39 state-level organizations reported having finished assessing their data exchanges; (6) for the exchanges already identified as not year 2000 ready, respondents reported that little progress has yet been made in completing key steps such as reaching agreements with partners on date formats, developing and testing bridges and filters, and developing contingency plans for cases in which year 2000 readiness will not be achieved; (7) most federal agency actions to address year 2000 issues with international data exchanges have been in the financial services area; (8) ten federal agencies reported having a total of 702 data exchanges with foreign governments or the foreign private sector; (9) these foreign data exchanges represented less than 1 percent of federal agencies' total reported exchanges; (10) federal agencies reported reaching agreements so far on formats of 98 of the foreign data exchanges; (11) international organizations addressing year 2000 issues have been the most active in the financial services area; and (12) during 1997, several international organizations initiated activities to increase awareness, provide guidance, and monitor the status of year 2000 efforts.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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