GSA releases RFI for database to share terrorism data

The General Services Administration is asking industry to provide a governmentwide, searchable database of information, organizations, services and personnel related to each agency's mission in the war on terrorism.

GSA released a request for information earlier this month and will hold an industry day Aug. 25 in Washington to describe their needs for electronic directory services. Responses to the RFI are due Sept. 7.

GSA hopes the database satisfies the requirements of Section 1016 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act to create an effective information sharing environment (ISE).

"The ISE will support the sharing and access to terrorism information, which includes information from intelligence, law enforcement, military, homeland security and other communities," the RFI said.

In the sources-sought document, GSA said the database must demonstrate an initial capability to locate and access terrorism information and be accessible to the federal government, with a clear path for early expansion to state, local and tribal officials, law enforcement, the private sector and foreign allies.

In the long term, the database should have the capacity for thousands of organizations and, potentially, millions of individual users, as well as hundreds of thousand or millions of accesses each day, the document said.

The RFI asks vendors to answer 66 questions about how they would develop such a database, ranging from how they would keep the information current to their proposed architecture and how it aligns with the Federal Enterprise Architecture's Data Reference Model to authentication, access controls and management of the system.

Jason Miller is an assistant managing editor of Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.