2026-S-015 (SSN) Social Media Web Archiving.pdf

Sources Sought Notice V1 | June 2022 Page 1

SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA WEB ARCHIVING

This announcement constitutes a Sources Sought Notice (SSN) for the purpose of determining market capability of sources. Responses to this SSN may be evaluated to identify the best qualified respondents for the next round of procurement consideration, if any.

I. DISCLAIMER

THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE ONLY.

THIS SOURCES SOUGHT IS NOT A NOTICE OF SOLICITATION ISSUANCE. This SSN is issued solely for information and planning purposes – it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quote (RFQ), nor a promise to issue an RFP or RFQ in the future. This SSN does not commit the U.S. Senate to contract for any supply or service. The Senate will not accept unsolicited responses, quotes, or proposals or pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in responding to this SSN. All costs associated with responding to this SSN will be solely at the interested party’s expense. Not responding to this SSN may preclude participation in a future solicitation if any solicitation is issued. If the Senate subsequently releases a solicitation, it may be published on the SAM.gov website or issued directly to the best qualified respondents that responded to the SSN.

This synopsis contains the currently available information and is subject to change at any time.

II. BACKGROUND

The purpose of this SSN is to identify vendors capable of providing social media and web archiving services. Solutions must support the capture and preservation of social media platforms and should also be capable of capturing other publicly available web-based content, including websites and online communications, as needed. The Senate seeks to identify capable sources of comprehensive web archiving solutions that can potentially replace or enhance existing social media archiving services currently in use within the Senate environment.

The bi-annual congressional web harvest for Senate domains has historically experienced challenges capturing social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. During a previous Congress, significant issues arose because the solution in use at the time was unable to reliably capture social media content.

Beginning in the following Congress, committees were advised to take responsibility for procuring their own social media web crawls. At present, only a limited number of Senate-approved providers offer social media web archiving services. One available solution cannot reliably capture social media content, resulting in incomplete, unplayable, or unrenderable archives, while the alternative option provides more reliable captures but at a significantly higher cost.

Responses to this SSN will assist the Senate in reviewing the current social media web archiving services offered in the marketplace that meet the Senate’s requirements and guidelines outlined

Sources Sought Notice V1 | June 2022 Page 2 below. The Senate requests responses outlining the solutions that meet or exceed the requirements set forth herein and provide a description, including the scope, services offered, and method of implementation.

III. REQUIREMENTS

All requirements listed below are mandatory unless otherwise noted. Each item in the following sections requires a response.

Mandatory Requirements

1. Full and Authentic Data Capture

a. The solution must support comprehensive social media archiving, including posts, comments, replies, and associated metadata such as timestamps and usernames.

b. The solution must support comprehensive capture of other publicly available web-based content with the same level of fidelity and completeness required for social media archiving, including dynamic and interactive web content, such as videos, pop-ups, expandable or scrolling content, and other non-static elements.

c. The solution must provide web standards-based archival outputs for both social media and other web-based content to ensure complete, authentic, and re-playable preservation over time.

2. Searchability and Accessibility

a. The solution must include full-text search functionality to enable rapid retrieval of posts, keywords, or hashtags.

b. The solution must support metadata indexing, allowing searches by date, account, post type, or engagement metrics.

c. The solution must offer export options in multiple formats, such as PDF, CSV, WARC, JSON, or equivalent.

3. Security and Integrity

a. The solution must use data encryption to safeguard archived content from unauthorized access.

b. The solution must maintain audit trails documenting all access, changes, and exports.

c. The solution must allow the storage and export of data within a web archive file that includes hash values and other metadata that can be used to demonstrate authenticity.

4. Automation and Ease of Use

a. The solution must support automated archiving processes that run continuously without manual intervention.

5. Vendor Reputation and Support

Sources Sought Notice V1 | June 2022 Page 3

a. The vendor must demonstrate prior experience supporting government or public-sector organizations.

b. The vendor must provide responsive customer support, including technical assistance and dedicated account management.

Other Requirements and Questions

1. Customizable archive for targeted preservation – allows users to define specified criteria for capturing content.

2. View in context – allows users to review and interact with dynamic web archives.

3. Self learning – allows users to take a tour and learn the application, employing an intuitive user interface.

IV. GUIDELINES

In addition, respondents or their social media web archiving service must qualify under the following guidelines:

1. Compliant with social media archiving standards - The Service will provide automated and immutable archiving of web, team collaboration, and social media content and data in their original context through fully navigable, true-native format replicas that meet ISO and SEC 17a-4 WORM storage standards, as well as widely adopted community standards for web archiving.

2. Must store data in US data centers.

3. Must support MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication).

4. Confidentiality: Only authorized users and processes should be able to access or modify data.

5. Integrity: Data should be maintained in a correct state, and nobody should be able to improperly modify it, either accidentally or maliciously.

6. Availability: Authorized users should be able to access data whenever they need to do so.

V. INSTRUCTIONS:

Respondents should respond to this Notice by submitting an information package in accordance with the following instructions.

1. Respondents must submit the following in their response to this SSN:

a. A narrative identifying the social media and web archiving service, with a brief and concise description of the service, its scope, and its method of implementation. The narrative should also describe the service’s ability to capture, preserve, and render other publicly available web-based content in a manner consistent with the requirements for social media archiving.

b. For each mandatory requirement listed under Mandatory Requirements, Respondent must state if proposed social media and web archiving service meets

Sources Sought Notice V1 | June 2022 Page 4 the requirement or not, and provide a concise explanation for meeting the requirement or not.

c. For Other Requirements and Questions, please provide the information requested.

d. For Guidelines, the Respondent must provide specific information for meeting each guideline.

e. Respondents should provide business information including the following:

• Company Name and;

• Division or Department (if applicable);

• Submitter’s Name;

• Company/Division/Department Address, Telephone and Fax Numbers;

• Point of Contact (if different from Submitter), Title or Position, Mobile

Number and Email Address;

• Company SAM Registration, CAGE, Unique Entity ID and Tax

Identification numbers

2. The response shall not exceed 10 pages. Unnecessarily elaborate submissions are discouraged. Pages over the page limitation may be discarded. Senate access to information in any files attached to the response is the submitting party’s responsibility. The Senate is not responsible for any failure to access Respondent's information.

3. Responses to this Sources Sought Notice are due to the Senate on February 25, 2026, and shall be submitted electronically, via email, to the attention of Holly McDonald at acquisitions@saa.senate.gov. The subject line of the email message shall be: “2026-S- 015"social media web archiving service.” No other method of transmittal will be accepted.

4. The Senate will evaluate the SSN responses to qualify them for the next round of procurement consideration, if any. NOTE: Respondents, whose SSN responses are not selected for the next round of procurement consideration, if any, will not be debriefed nor provided information on the evaluation of their response.

5. Respondents whose SSN responses are deemed best qualified by the Senate may be invited to the next round of procurement consideration, if any, in a format deemed appropriate by the Senate. The Senate will notify these respondents directly wherein the format for this next round of procurement will be announced.

The information contained in this Notice is the most current and the only information provided by the Senate during this phase of the Sources Sought process. Potential respondents are responsible for monitoring sam.gov for possible additional information pertaining to this requirement.

THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. THIS NOTICE CONSTITUTES THE

ENTIRE SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE AND IS THE ONLY INFORMATION

PROVIDED BY THE SENATE. ANY QUESTIONS OR REQUESTS FOR ADDITIONAL

INFORMATION WILL NOT BE HONORED OR ACCEPTED.