1. DESCRIPTION
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is conducting market research through a Request for Information (RFI) on the current availability and technological capabilities of vendors to provide identify commercial capabilities and potential sources that can provide secure Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) data platform support services to U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) personnel to successfully operate at Communications and Information Capabilities (CIC) Program.
THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT INTEND TO AWARD A CONTRACT ON THE BASIS OF THIS RFI OR TO OTHERWISE PAY FOR INFORMATION RECEIVED. This RFI is issued solely for information, planning purposes, and market research only; it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP. This research does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service. CBP will not pay any costs associated with responding to this research. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future full and open competition RFP. If a solicitation is released, it will be posted to the SAM.gov (sam.gov) website.
All submissions become the property of the Government and will not be returned. The information obtained from industry responses to this RFI may be used in the development of an acquisition strategy and future RFP.
2. INTRODUCTION
CBP is responsible for securing the United States' national borders against the illegal entry of people and goods between Ports of Entry (POE). To accomplish this mission, the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) employs infrastructure, technology, and personnel to predict and deter illicit activity, detect and track illegal border crossings, identify and classify incursions, and respond effectively.
The CIC Program supports mission stakeholders through secure information-management, data-sharing, analytics, and technology-enabled collaboration capabilities. The Program is exploring options to obtain secure SaaS data platform support services that can meet evolving operational, data-management, cybersecurity, and user-support needs.
The Government is interested in commercial solutions and associated managed services that maximize use of configurable, secure, and scalable SaaS capabilities while minimizing unnecessary custom development.
The anticipated support services may include platform implementation, configuration, administration, data integration, data governance, security support, user support, training, reporting, and transition services. Where authorized by the Government, the platform may need to interoperate with existing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identity, collaboration, cloud, data-management, and information-sharing services.
To achieve comprehensive surveillance coverage, CBP requires autonomous systems, real-time intelligence integration, and persistent monitoring of high-priority zones. The CIC Program addresses these needs by delivering automated, location-determinant surveillance, integrating sensor data, and operationalizing censoring and optic infrastructure across critical areas.
3. PURPOSE
The CIC Program seeks information from industry regarding the availability, maturity, implementation approach, security posture, operational support model, and pricing structures for secure SaaS data platform capabilities. The anticipated platform would support authorized users in securely ingesting, managing, governing, analyzing, sharing, and reporting on organizational data.
4. CURRENT STATUS / REQUIREMENTS
CBP seeks information on industry capabilities to provide some or all the following services.
4.1 Technical Requirements
a. Platform Implementation and Configuration
Potential services include:
- Platform discovery, requirements refinement, and implementation planning.
- Platform configuration and tenant administration.
- Configuration of dashboards, reports, workflows, data models, and user roles.
- Environment setup, release planning, and deployment support.
- Development and maintenance of technical, operational, and user documentation.
- Support for platform modernization and enhancement efforts.
b. Platform Operations and Administration
Potential services include:
- Day-to-day SaaS platform administration.
- User account, role, group, and permissions management.
- Configuration management and documentation.
- Performance, availability, capacity, and utilization monitoring.
- Release, patch, and upgrade coordination.
- Change, incident, problem, and service-request management.
- Coordination with SaaS providers, Government stakeholders, and authorized third parties.
c. Data Integration and Engineering
Potential services include:
- Assessment and onboarding of approved data sources.
- Development, configuration, and sustainment of data pipelines, connectors, application programming interfaces, and data exchanges.
- Secure batch and near-real-time data ingestion, as applicable.
- Data transformation, validation, reconciliation, and quality monitoring.
- Data schema and metadata management.
- Error handling, logging, monitoring, and recovery support.
- Support for data export, migration, retention, archival, and disposition, as directed by the Government.
d. Data Governance and Management
Potential services include:
- Data cataloging and metadata management.
- Data lineage, provenance, and traceability support.
- Data-quality monitoring and remediation support.
- Data-access workflow support.
- Data stewardship and data-owner support.
- Support for Government-directed data labels, handling caveats, sharing restrictions, and retention requirements.
- Support for records-management processes, including legal holds, retention, archival, disposition, and deletion, as applicable.
e. Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Compliance Support
The Government is interested in solutions and services that support applicable DHS security, privacy, and cloud-computing requirements. Potential support areas include:
- Role-based access control and least-privilege access.
- Multi-factor authentication and single sign-on or identity federation.
- Encryption of data in transit and at rest using Government-approved methods.
- Audit logging, monitoring, alerting, and reporting.
- Security configuration management and secure baselines.
- Vulnerability-management coordination and remediation tracking.
- Security incident reporting and corrective-action support.
- Security assessment evidence collection and continuous-monitoring support.
- Privacy compliance support, as directed by the Government.
- Separation of Government data from other customer data in a multi-tenant environment.
- Support for applicable Federal security authorization processes.
4.2 Information Sharing and Interoperability
The Government is interested in capabilities that support secure, controlled information sharing and interoperability with Government-approved systems and services.
Potential capabilities include:
- Secure application programming interfaces, data feeds, file exchange, and web-service integrations.
- Identity federation and approved user-provisioning mechanisms.
- Controlled sharing of approved dashboards, reports, data products, documents, notifications, and collaboration artifacts.
- Segmentation of data and content by authorized organization, role, community, or other Government-defined criteria.
- Logging and auditability of data sharing, administrative activity, and user access.
- Interface documentation, test support, operational monitoring, and change management.
4.3 User Support and Training
Potential services include:
- Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 user and administrator support.
- Incident intake, tracking, escalation, resolution, and closure.
- Service-request fulfillment.
- User onboarding, role modification, suspension, and deprovisioning support.
- Knowledge articles, user guides, frequently asked questions, and administrator documentation.
- End-user, administrator, and technical training.
- Release communications, change-management support, and user adoption activities.
4.4 Reporting and Performance Management
Potential services include development and delivery of recurring operational reports addressing:
- Platform availability, performance, and utilization.
- Incident and service-request volumes, trends, and resolution status.
- Data pipeline performance, processing timeliness, and error rates.
- Data-quality metrics and remediation status.
- Security events, vulnerabilities, and remediation activities.
- Access-review status and access-control findings.
- Planned releases, maintenance, changes, risks, issues, and dependencies.
- Capacity, storage, and anticipated growth.
5.0 Desired Vendor Qualifications
The CIC Program is interested in responses from organizations with demonstrated experience in one or more of the following areas:
- Operating and supporting enterprise SaaS data platforms in Federal or similarly regulated environments.
- Implementing secure cloud-based data integration, data engineering, analytics, reporting, and governance capabilities.
- Supporting Federal security authorization, assessment, and continuous-monitoring activities.
- Supporting SaaS environments with FedRAMP authorization or comparable Government security authorization.
- Implementing identity and access management, role-based access controls, audit logging, encryption, and data segmentation.
- Providing managed services with measurable service levels and mature incident, change, and release-management processes.
- Supporting data sharing among multiple authorized organizations or user communities.
- Providing user support, technical documentation, training, and knowledge transfer.
- Supporting secure transition of data, documentation, configurations, and operations to the Government or a successor contractor.
6.0 RESPONSE REQUIREMENTS
Your firm is requested to submit its response to the following:
Attachment A Vendor Company Data and Focused Additional Information
Vendors shall complete Attachment A with relevant corporate and contact information, business size, and applicable socioeconomic status.
Attachment B Draft SOW (Secure Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Data Platform Support Services)
7.0 SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Interested vendors should submit responses via email on or before 5:00 PM EST on November 10, 2026. to:
Email: usbp.cic@cbp.dhs.gov
Submissions shall adhere to the following:
- Responses shall not exceed 6 pages, plus Attachment A. Excess pages will not be reviewed.
- Responses shall be submitted using Microsoft Word, 12-point font, single line spacing.
- Marketing documentation not specific to this RFI will be discarded without review.
- CBP will maintain vendor confidentiality with all documentation.
8. QUESTIONS
Questions for the Government regarding this RFI may be submitted prior to 5:00 PM EST November 10, 2026 (COB) to:
Email: USBP.CIC@cbp.dhs.gov
Responses to any questions submitted may not be provided. The Government will not respond to media or unrelated inquiries.
