US-FED-00000387610 - Cloud-Based Platform for Screening System Data Sharing Consortium (SSDSC) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Transpor - Deadline August 18,2026

Cloud–Based Platform for Screening System Data Sharing Consortium (SSDSC) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Transportation Security Laboratory (TSL)THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLYThis Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for information and market research and planning purposes. This RFI shall not be construed as an obligation on the part of the Government. This is NOT a Request for Quotations or Proposals (RFQ or RFP). No solicitation document exists and the Government may or may not issue a formal solicitation as a result of any information received in response to this RFI.The Government will not pay for any response or demonstration expenses. All costs incurred responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party`s expense. Failure to respond to this RFI will not preclude participation in any future solicitation. In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine that organization`s capabilities.The Government`s explicit intent through this RFI is to obtain general product/service information. The Government is not requesting and does not want to receive from respondents any proprietary data, trade secrets, business sensitive information, or information considered CONFIDENTIAL under 18 U.S.C. §1905. The Government`s constraint does not in any way relieve contractors from their responsibility to properly mark proprietary data when it is provided, nor does it alleviate any requirement for the Government to protect marked data. The Government is not obligated to protect unmarked data.The information provided in this RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. All submissions become the property of the Federal Government and will not be returned.I. BACKGROUNDThe United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Directorate of Science and Technology (S&T) Office of National Laboratories (ONL) Transportation Security Laboratory (TSL) is seeking information for support services to establish a Screening System Data Sharing Consortium (SSDSC) for the purposes of facilitating collection and sharing of screening system data ranging from non–sensitive to Sensitive Security Information (SSI).With its staff of federal employees and contractors, including physicists, chemists, engineers, and mathematicians, TSL is internationally recognized for its unique ability to advance detection technology from conception to deployment through applied research, test and evaluation, assessment, and certification testing.Among its many tasks, TSL conducts research, development, and validation of Transportation Security Equipment (TSE) to assess its effectiveness in detecting and mitigating threats posed by explosive devices and contraband items and materials. To address evolving security challenges, the DHS Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is transitioning toward an open architecture approach for TS – emphasizing standards–based, interoperable software and hardware components. This approach enables a broad range of industry partners to develop innovative subcomponents and fosters rapid adoption of state–of–the–art solutions across transportation security systems. To support this move to open architecture, TSL is establishing the SSDSC to facilitate collection and sharing of screening system data ranging from non–sensitive to SSI. This initiative aims to accelerate the development and validation of machine learning–enabled threat detection algorithms. Since TSE vendors require access to large and diverse datasets to reliably train and test their models, a critical element of the consortium is providing authorized developers with secure and efficient access to well–curated data from a variety of data providers.TSL intends to address this need through the development and implementation of a cloud–based platform to receive, store, curate, protect, and enable authorized access to large amounts of screening system data. The platform will serve as a centralized repository for data from both developmental systems and deployed TSE, including x–ray Computed Tomography (CT) Explosive Detection Systems (EDS) for both checked bag and carry–on bag screening and millimeter wave systems for screening passengers. The repository will also contain data sets including augmented and fully synthetic data. Because of the sensitive nature of the data, the platform will need to comply with rigorous requirements for authorized access and privacy protection.II. PURPOSE OF RFIResponses to this RFI are solely for the purpose of market research and will be used for a mark