Information Coordination Center

Region

United States

Associated With

General Services Administration - institutional home

Defining Feature

Federal collection, assessment and sharing of Y2K status and incident reports

Status

Unresolved - full operations ended on 7 January 2000; final dissolution date unknown

Overview

The Information Coordination Center was the US federal hub for monitoring the Y2K rollover.

Established in 1999, it gathered status and incident reports, assessed what they meant and shared information without taking emergency authority away from existing agencies.

During the millennium change, reports were graded green, yellow or red for service capacity. Full operations ended on 7 January 2000, followed by daily email reporting through the end of that month.

Why It Mattered

The ICC’s picture of the rollover depended on which reports reached it. The State and Defense departments used routes outside its general unclassified reporting system, while Senate reviewers found incidents in news-service coverage that were absent from official international reports. Bringing information into one centre did not mean every incident appeared in the same account.

Mandate and Authority

• Executive Order 13127 established the ICC within the General Services Administration on 14 June 1999; it did not identify when a physical monitoring room opened.
• The centre assisted the President’s Council on Year 2000 Conversion through information sharing, coordination and assessment.
• Existing agencies retained their emergency-response authority rather than transferring it to the ICC.

Rollover Reporting System

• GAO described twice-daily reporting from 28 December 1999 through 7 January 2000, with additional reports required for significant changes.
• Green meant normal service capacity, yellow reduced service and red significantly reduced capacity; incidents could be reported whether or not Y2K caused them.
• The State and Defense departments used routes separate from the general unclassified Information Collection and Reporting System.
• A Senate committee relayed the President’s Council’s estimate that approximately 175–200 people worked at the ICC, but this was not an independently verified shift census.

Checked Reports and Open Endpoints

• The Food and Drug Administration investigated a reported hospital dispensing-system problem and determined that report was false.
• GAO also recorded genuine FAA computer problems, despite the limited disruption overall.
• A return to full operation for leap-day monitoring was planned, but the available records do not confirm that it occurred.
• An expected shutdown of the President’s Council by the end of March 2000 does not establish the ICC’s final dissolution date.

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