Pentagon Seeks Software to Analyze Data from Twitter

The Defense Department is looking for open-source intelligence software with access to at least 50 million websites and the ability to ingest data from sources like social media to create graphics—including location maps—for analysis in real time, according to a new solicitation. Open-source intelligence, or OSINT, refers to intelligence produced from publicly available information. This can include information like location data, which is often collected from smartphone apps and social media sites. The Defense and intelligence communities have used OSINT for decades, but the advent of the internet and social media has greatly increased the amount of public data available for collection and intelligence analysis.  The DOD solicitation, which was published Thursday on beta.SAM.gov by the Pentagon’s Washington Headquarters Service, is focused largely on Twitter, the only social media platform the solicitation explicitly names. The solicitation is a small business set aside specifically asking for software fulfilling five requirement program elements and 12 characteristics. The vendor must be able to alert the government via its platform and through email messages, access at least 50 million unique websites, be a “vetted Official Twitter Partner,” provide the entire Twitter historical archive for analysis and be able to handle data in at least 150 languages. The complete…
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