R499--privacy act request fulfillment

The Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Benefits Administration is conducting market research and anticipates soliciting a managed service to fulfill Privacy Act and FOIA records requests, with an RFI response deadline of September 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time.

The RFI (36C10D26Q0196) seeks vendor capability information for a service encompassing request intake, records retrieval, redaction, quality assurance, and electronic delivery. The VA is evaluating acquisition structures including a single end-to-end provider or multiple qualified providers operating under common Government-owned business rules and oversight. The Government will retain policy, oversight, and quality functions while contractors provide production support, automation, AI-assisted document classification, records identification, Privacy Act/FOIA redaction quality assurance, cloud-based managed services with cybersecurity and Authority to Operate support, and systems integration with VA enterprise capabilities including VBMS/eFolder, Claims Evidence API, and EP 510 Series tracking.

The service must support advanced information processing using OCR, NLP, LLM, and machine learning for PII/PHI identification with human-in-the-loop review for high-risk scenarios. Security requirements include VA ATO authorization, NIST/FIPS standards, encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access control, and Section 508 accessibility compliance. Performance measurement emphasizes outcome-based quality gates—timeliness, redaction accuracy, automation effectiveness, customer experience, security, and cost efficiency—rather than process compliance.

Responses require company and point of contact information, UEI, business size classification (small business or other), applicable socioeconomic categories (SDVOSB, VOSB, WOSB, 8(a)), GSA contract numbers if applicable, and responses to detailed technical questions. Vendors with GSA Market Research as a Service access must respond through that platform; others respond via SAM.gov. Contracting office: 1800 G Street NW, Washington DC 20006. Point of contact: Contract Specialist Gregory Stevens (gregory.stevens@va.gov, 313-354-2194). NAICS 518210; PSC R499.