Hudson Hollister, writer for Data Coalition blog, provides interesting insight on a new procurement announcement from the General Services Administration (GSA) that “has confirmed that the U.S. federal government is seriously considering a new, open future for the way contractors and grantees are identified.”
In summary:
- Contractors and grantees registering with GSA are assigned a nine-digit DUNS Number and for over twenty years GSA has allowed Dun & Bradstreet to retain proprietary ownership because no alternatives were available. “Now, the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), a nonproprietary, freely-downloadable identification code, is being adopted by other government agencies around the world, and GSA’s 18F technology team has figured out how the LEI could seamlessly replace the DUNS.”
- GSA’s contract with Dun & Bradstreet is due to expire next year. GSA issued a public RFI requesting input from the tech community “on how this contract should change in the future.”
- Reacting to that input, on Oct. 19th, GSA issued a second RFI, with a Performance Work Statement (PWS), that confirms it is seriously considering ending Dun & Bradstreet’s monopoly. Click here to read the entire post and four key statements from the documentation.
