VOLUME 3. ISSUE 28.
Welcome to Carpe Datum’s weekly newsletter, the Fed Data Prospector (Vol. 3, Issue 28).  It is quite evident that summertime is fully underway here in the Greater Washington D.C. area. With temperatures regularly exceeded 90 degrees and most afternoons threatened by severe thunderstorms, all the signals confirm what we already know by looking at the calendar. Likewise, for those of us who have experienced the federal government’s buying cycle previously, the associated signals are equally compelling -- a sharp increase in new procurement activities, as well as a steady flow of re-compete actions -- all racing to beat the September 30th fiscal year-end deadline that actually gave birth to the phrase, "use it or lose it". Thus, if the call of sun, sand, and surf is too hard to resist, not to worry ... the Fed Data Prospector has you covered!
 
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  • Request for Information (RFI) – Army Contracting Command – Aberdeen Proving Grounds -- Automated Installation Entry(AIE-3) Next - RFI #2 – The purpose of this RFI is to solicit industry feedback of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) technology that can enhance the Army’s current Automated Installation Entry (AIE) capability for initial vetting and near-real-time, continuous vetting of personnel against authoritative data sources during Installation Access Control Point (IACP) operations. This market research seeks to focus on existing and/or emerging technologies that have a demonstrated ability to minimize risks and enhance security through verification and authentication of a person and their identification credentials against DoD-approved authoritative databases.
 
In other data news, on June 17th, ExecutiveGov published an interesting article entitled, TransUnion Study Shows Prevalence of Account Takeover Fraud in Public Sector.  In this article, Jane Edwards describes how a study conducted by TransUnion and the Ponemon Institute found that 53 percent of federal, state and local government agency leaders confirmed an increase in threats related to "account takeover fraud" in the past two years. 
 
  • “TransUnion found that more than 60 percent of survey respondents said they believe artificial intelligence and enhancements to identity authentication will help agencies improve user experiences and make citizens' online access to their accounts more secure … ‘focusing on emerging tools, such as AI, device risk assessment and identity verification, in addition to policies and best practices for a seamless user experience, will go a long way towards protecting and gaining the confidence of consumers,’ added Jonathan McDonald, executive vice president and head of TransUnion’s public sector business.”
  • Public Sector Fraud Trends Study: Link to the Report

The Carpe Datum Team
Project Convergence Industry Round Table – June 2021
Dept. of Defense
Army Futures Command (AFC) is excited to invite all interested industry partners to participate in a virtual Project Convergence Round Table discussion, from 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM (CDT) on June 28, 2021...
Social Media Monitoring Service
Dept. of Defense
Service required to monitor online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, and traditional news sources as well as social media. Vendor must be able to support langauge translation for customer requirements...
242 Program Feasibility Studies Data Web-Based Subscription Services
Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 12.6, “Streamlined Procedures for Evaluation and Solicitation for Commercial Items,” in conjunction with FAR 13.5, “Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items”, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice...
Developing Weights for Scanner Data
Dept. of Agriculture
The USDA has a requirement for Developing Weights for Scanner Data and Measuring the Retail Food Price Environment in accordance with the attached SOW...
Open Source (OS)/Publicly Available Information (PAI) business intelligence tools
Dept. of Defense
Sources Sought Updated - June 17, 2021
Data Analytics
Dept. of Defense
Q&A June 15, 2021
The Sprout Social (Simply Measured) software
Dept. of Health and Human Services
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intends to award a sole source firm fixed price purchase order to Sprout Social Inc...
Intent to Sole Source West Publishing Corporation
Dept. of the Treasury
The Bureau of Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service), on behalf of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), intends to contract with West Publishing Corporation 610 Opperman Drive, Eagan, MN 55123, on a sole source basis, under authority of FAR 6.302-1, for a subscription to CLEAR online investigation software...
Intent to Sole Source - LexisNexis Accurint XML Batch Searches
ATF
Fiscal Service Procurement on behalf of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has an Intent to Sole Source for the purchase of LexisNexis Accurint XML Batch Search Licenses...
Notice of Intent to Sole Source with GDTS-III
Dept. of Defense
Under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) intends to issue a modification to the Geospatial-Intelligence (GEOINT) Data Transformation Services (GDTS) III contract for additional services under CLIN 0003 (System Design, Build, Upgrade, Integrate, and Test)...
Capella Space wins research contract from U.S. Space Development Agency
SDA is interested in “novel remote sensing phenomenologies" for tracking missiles and other targets...
DHS awards $99M OCSO Identity Credentialing and Access Management Support BPA
This woman-owned small business, focused on being a forward-thinking, human-centered, emerging technology, and analytics company, was recently awarded a 5-year, $99M single-award BPA to provide identity credentialing and access management support services to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Chief Security Officer...
FAA Selects Palantir for Aircraft Certification Safety Monitoring Solution
Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYE:PLTR) today announced it has been contracted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide a data analytics tool that will help advance the agency’s modernization objectives for aviation safety...
For The U.S. Census, Keeping Your Data Anonymous And Useful Is A Tricky Balance
As the country waits for more results from last year's national head count, the U.S. Census Bureau is facing an increasingly tricky balancing act...
Republicans Call for Hearing on Possible IRS Leak of Personal Taxpayer Information
Federal agencies took immediate action to investigate how a news organization got ahold of the sensitive information...
U.S. Supreme Court sends LinkedIn data-scraping suit back to lower court
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday gave Microsoft’s LinkedIn another chance to try to stop rival hiQ Labs from harvesting personal data from the professional networking platform’s public profiles — a practice that LinkedIn contends threatens the privacy of its users...
Data integrity remains an issue for VA, despite improvements
Discrepancies in staffing and vacancy reports in the Department of Veterans Affairs continue to hamper transparency of employee data in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA)...
How Biden Can Build on Obama and Trump’s Bipartisan Open Data Legacy
On President Obama’s first day in office, he issued a memorandum on transparency and open government declaring that “information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset” and committing his administration to “an unprecedented level of openness in Government.”...
Federal data privacy legislation could benefit U.S. economy
California, Virginia and, most recently, Colorado have adopted comprehensive online data privacy laws -- but a state-by-state rather than a federal approach won't be enough to keep the U.S. secure and competitive...
Web app visualizes intersection of COVID, government policies and mobility
To better understand the relationships between human mobility, government policies and cases of COVID-19, researchers at the University of Miami have developed an interactive web application that illustrates how pandemic-related policies affected the movement of people...
Feds Offer Tips to Better Leverage Agency Data
Incentivized by the Federal Data Strategy 2021 Action Plan and laws, like the 2019 Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, federal agencies are looking to make better use of their data...
Markaaz Announces Partnership with Equifax to Help SMBs Mitigate Operational Risk
Markaaz, the world's first platform to comprehensively enable small businesses to grow customers, manage suppliers and improve cash flow, today announced a partnership with Equifax, a global data, analytics and technology company...
Esri is the most amazing company you've never heard of
Esri does about $1.3 billion in revenue and is the biggest GIS (geographical information systems) software company. SafeGraph (where I work) partners with Esri (and Esri is also a customer of ours)...
Location Intelligence Is Becoming Democratized — Here’s How Your Business Can Harness It
Todd is the CEO and Co-Founder of OmniSci, the pioneer in accelerated analytics that enables businesses to uncover important insights...
Meltwater acquires business information companyOwler
Meltwater acquires business information company Owler for $24.5 million in a combination of cash and equity...
Government Blockchain Week is Coming to Washington DC
September 27- October 2, Washington DC. The Government Blockchain Association (GBA) will host a week-long live event, Government Blockchain Week...
Association of Public Data Users (APDU) 
2021 Annual Conference
July 26 - 29th, 2021
Public Data - Making Sense of the New Normal
The Federal Data Prospector is curated by Carpe Datum employees, and delivers fresh content about the intersection of the data and analytics industry and the Federal Government for businesses who want to start or grow their public sector practices.

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