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1. Background and Purpose

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) requires a service to provide high-quality editorial photographs and footage on a 24-hour, seven-day a week basis via direct, on-demand Internet download.

The Bureau is responsible for providing a safe and secure environment for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. It is the most widely represented U.S. law enforcement and security organization in the world and protects people, property, and information at more than 300 State Department missions around the globe. This agreement will help satisfy a portion of its public affairs/information and curriculum design needs.

Notice: This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes - it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever.

Objectives and Scope of Contract

• Immediate, unlimited, and online access to high-quality editorial photographs and video on U.S. foreign policy and current/historical events to be used for classroom use, online and print course material, and for public affairs/information programming and internal U.S. Government security publications for print and electronic distribution—including Internet web pages, posters, exhibits and exhibitions, regular and recurring U.S. State Department reports, toolkits, social media, articles, magazines and professional journals, pamphlets, books, brochures, internationally taught curriculum with associated learning materials, among other items.


• DS offices that have the above need will pull images from a shared allotment of images and videos.


• DS offices would like to be allotted organizational accounts that could be used by approx. 4-5 people on their teams, at any given time. DS users must have unlimited access/accounts to the website supplying the photographs and multimedia for immediate download. No seat or print run limits.


• Rights-managed photographs and multimedia will not be limited in time (e.g., rights never expire) or distribution (to include both domestic and overseas). DS users will appropriately credit photographs and multimedia sources as industry standard, (i.e., in the images, captions, or credits).


• Broad usage rights that include photographs and multimedia being royalty-free. Usage rights would be for life of contract plus five-years due to record retention requirements.


• Ability to download and edit photographs and multimedia as long as the original intent of the photograph and multimedia is retained. The creative integrity of the photograph or image will be protected.

• Ability to easily and reliably search online for historical, news, editorial, abstract, and creative photographs and multimedia from online databases and libraries.


• Access to photographs in almost real-time with live pictures as news breaks. Photographs needed for world events (e.g., Olympics), presidential and executive branch cabinet-level travel, major world summits (e.g., U.N. General Assembly, Group of Eight meetings), etc.


• Ability to pull usage reports and query website for information on photo downloads (user who downloaded them, when they were downloaded, and how often an image was downloaded by dates).


• Customer support must be available 24 hours a day and seven days a week.


• Flexibility to download and publish images in any way these offices need over time. Given the possible long-term nature of this contract (base + four option years), needs and product lines (e.g., posters, articles, infographics, etc.) and their names may shift and evolve. No matter what form the stakeholders’ publication needs take, images will need to be published in any format provided the product is used for government purposes only.


• The U.S. State Department will download photographs and videos for public affairs use, internal government communications (including presentations, newsletters, etc.), law enforcement use, and classroom/curriculum use only.


• No individual photograph or image unattached to or unassociated with a larger publication or curriculum and associated training materials may be distributed by the Department of State to any news media or commercial photo vendors.