Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government (Executive Order 13960)

Record US-29 · Executive Order 13960; 85 FR 78939 (FR Doc. 2020-27065)

Issued by: The White House (President Donald J. Trump)
Jurisdiction: United States
Level · region: National · North America
Published / adopted: 2020-12-03
In force: 2020-12-03
Language: English
Official identifier: Executive Order 13960; 85 FR 78939 (FR Doc. 2020-27065)

Summary

Executive order setting nine principles that federal agencies must follow when designing, developing, acquiring and using AI for purposes other than national security and defense: lawful and respectful of the nation's values; purposeful and performance-driven; accurate, reliable and effective; safe, secure and resilient; understandable; responsible and traceable; regularly monitored; transparent; and accountable. OMB must post a roadmap for policy guidance to implement them. Agencies must inventory their non-classified AI use cases every year, publish the inventories, and bring applications that are inconsistent with the order into line or retire them.

Safety topics

public-sector useaccountability & liabilitytransparency & labellingevaluation & testinghuman oversight

Status notes

Signed 3 Dec 2020 and published in the Federal Register on 8 Dec 2020 (85 FR 78939). It does not apply to the Department of Defense or to agencies and components whose functions lie wholly within the intelligence community, nor to AI in defense or national security systems, AI embedded in common commercial products, or AI research and development. Under the 'regularly monitored' principle, agencies keep mechanisms to supersede, disengage or deactivate AI applications whose performance or outcomes are inconsistent with their intended use. Deadlines: inventory criteria from the CIO Council within 60 days and the OMB roadmap within 180 days of the order; agency inventories within 180 days of the criteria and annually after that; plans to achieve consistency or retire applications within 120 days of each inventory, and public inventories within 120 days. The order uses the AI definition in section 238(g) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 as a reference point. OMB memorandum M-26-04 of 11 Dec 2025, on unbiased AI principles for federal procurement of large language models, builds on this order together with OMB memoranda M-25-21 and M-25-22.

Sources

Open the official source https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-12-08/pdf/2020-27065.pdf

Local copy

Archived. Last attempt 2026-10-17 22:12:30 UTC

Official source (third-party copy, not published) archive/_runs/2026-10-16-discover-leads/C004/2026-10-16/official.pdf

Retrieved 2026-10-16 11:40:38 UTC

SHA-256 806dd5f22488f28f063bf06eae6f3f0480d40baf263bbe7e11721c01a265e5af

Verification

The instrument's own official text, or an official register, was stored and confirms the title, date and status. checked 2026-10-18 · official-url-fetched

Recheck of 17 Oct 2026: re-read the Federal Register print of the order stored from govinfo.gov on 16 Oct 2026 (unchanged on 17 Oct 2026; 5 pages, 85 FR 78939-78943). It confirms the title, the order number, the signing on 3 Dec 2020, publication on 8 Dec 2020 and FR Doc. 2020-27065, and the content of Secs. 1 to 10. OMB memorandum M-26-04 of 11 Dec 2025 (whitehouse.gov PDF, stored again for this run) names the order among the existing directives its guidance builds on, together with OMB memoranda M-25-22 and M-25-21. That the order is still in force rests on this and on the absence of any revocation or amendment in the stored sources.

Second check: Independent check by Claude Code (claude-sonnet-5-5), 2026-10-18: 7 field(s) supported.

History

2026-10-18Re-verified against its sources, no change — pipeline run 2026-10-17-recheck-north-america-1 (recheck), candidate US-292026-10-17-recheck-north-america-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
2026-10-16Added to the register — found in pipeline run 2026-10-16-discover-leads, candidate C004 (US/executive)2026-10-16-discover-leads · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)

Related records

OMB M-24-10 United States · Superseded

OMB M-25-21 United States · In force

EO 14319 (Unbiased AI Principles) United States · In force

OMB M-26-04 United States · In force

Citation

The White House (President Donald J. Trump). Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government (Executive Order 13960) [Executive Order 13960; 85 FR 78939 (FR Doc. 2020-27065)]. 2020-12-03. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-12-08/pdf/2020-27065.pdf. Status: In force; verified 2026-10-18 (level A). Local copy archive/_runs/2026-10-16-discover-leads/C004/2026-10-16/official.pdf retrieved 2026-10-16 11:40:38 UTC, SHA-256 806dd5f22488f28f063bf06eae6f3f0480d40baf263bbe7e11721c01a265e5af. Every AI Policy Ever, version 1.18 (snapshot 2026-10-18), record US-29.

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