Pentagon to Require Data Access in All Vendor Contracts

The Pentagon could soon mandate data access in all vendor contracts. The same was recommended by the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) in its most recent report. The Department of Defense (DoD) confronts notable hurdles in accessing and overseeing data stemming from the systems and services it collaborates on with industry.

“We therefore propose initial action around a new requirement in the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for all DoD vendor agreements to incorporate clear language on data rights and interoperability that manages data procured or generated under defense industrial contracts, and that facilitates, safeguards, and future-proofs DoD’s access to this data,” the DIB report stated.

Moreover, to foster favorable data marketplace conditions, DIB suggests this NDAA requirement should also mandate the establishment of several key components. These include the creation of a federated defense industrial data catalog for defense companies and the department, the development of a trusted community of interest for accessing this federated data catalog, and the establishment of an oversight body for overseeing this new data marketplace.

The recent development comes at a time when the Pentagon is working on its AI-powered chatbot, something similar to OpenAI’s popular chatbot ChatGPT. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is developing a technology that can take data from multiple sources, plug it into a database, and run a large language model on top of it.

The chatbot, however, is not designed to help defense personnel in mission-critical scenarios but to help assist captains with post-mission reports.