Engineers at the U.S. Air Force have started development work on an auto-air collision avoidance platform designed to prevent mid-air collisions involving fighter jets, Scout Warrior reported Wednesday.

Kris Osborn writes the new platform is based on an auto-ground collision avoidance system that is already installed onboard digital versions of F-16 fighter aircraft.

The auto-ground collision avoidance tool works to prevent potential ground collisions by altering the aircraft’s flight path through the use of computer algorithms, according to the report.

The service branch plans to integrate the auto-ground collision avoidance system with other fighter jets apart from F-16s in order to avert potential air-to-ground crashes.

“With this technology there is now a chance that the pilot can regain consciousness and become situationally aware and prevent flying that airplane into the ground,” Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, military deputy for acquisition at the Air Force, said in an interview with Scout Warrior.

Beth Cobert, acting director at the Office of Personnel Management, has said she is confident about the cybersecurity of the agency’s new information technology systems in an interview with the Washington Post published Wednesday.

She told The Post’s Joe Davidson that OPM moved to implement data protection measures after last year’s breach incident that affected approximately 22 million federal employee records.

“We have made huge strides,” Cobert noted during the interview.

“We have a lot of great tools in place.”

Davidson reports the agency established a continuous monitoring program, limited remote access to its network and formed a centralized security workforce to help protect IT systems across the organization.

OPM also adopted a two-factor authentication system as well as tools designed to stop malicious programs from entering the agency’s network and prevent data extrusion, according to the report.

A spokesman for the Office of Personnel Management has said OPM has initiated steps to extend identify theft and credit monitoring services to victims of data breaches at the agency from three years to up to 10 years, Government Executive reported Wednesday.

The spokesman added that OPM also plans to increase its spending on such services from $1 million to as much as $5 million, Eric Katz writes.

Bob Gregg, CEO of data breach response services provider ID Experts, told GovExec that OPM might also expand identity theft protection to data hack victims who use their personal data to gain access to medical services.

According to the report, ID Experts received a $330 million contract from OPM to provide such services to approximately 21.5 million federal employees whose personal data were compromised in cyber hacks at the agency.

Gregg added that talks over OPM’s plan to introduce a proposal on the types of identity theft protection and credit monitoring assistance that the agency would offer to all federal employees might “heat up” soon as the 18-month fraud protection support contract for the first breach incident at the agency approaches expiration, according to GovExec.

The Federal Aviation Administration has advised pilots that GPS signals in the West could be affected by military tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division in China Lake, California, USA Today reported Tuesday.

Bart Jansen writes the FAA said tests could make GPS signals unreliable or unavailable on June 7, 9, 21, 23, 28 and 30 and affect the flight stability of Embraer Phenom 300 business jets.

“This FAA flight advisory was issued in support of routine research, development, and test and evaluation efforts conducted at China Lake,” NAWCWD said in a statement.

The tests could interfere with GPS signals within at least 50 feet off the ground to as high as 40,000 feet above sea level nearly 550 miles away, USA Today said.

The affected area spans California and Nevada as well as parts of Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Arizona, Jansen wrote.