US Intel Leaders “It’s time to be Data Serious”

Uploaded on 2023-07-31 in FREE TO VIEW

The US Government says it’s time to get serious about data, how it is collected, curated, and capitalised by humans and machines, otherwise the country could lose its intelligence edge, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says in a new 3-year Data Strategy Report.

Senior Management of the Senate Intelligence Committee has recently said that Congress has been making a “serious effort” to address emerging technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computing, but “whether it is enough is something that we really need to ask ourselves.”

“To bridge the gap between where we are today and optimising for the future, we have taken a step back to see what we need to do as a Community to accelerate our data and digital transformation over the next three years so that end-to-end data management is core to what we do and not seen as merely an enabling function,” says The IC (Intelligence Community) Data Strategy 2023-2025.

“To date, we have not significantly prioritised data as a strategic and operational [intelligence community] asset. The central challenge remains that the IC is not fielding data, analytics, and AI enabled capabilities at the pace and scale required to preserve our decision and intelligence advantage,” the document said.

To fix that, the IC wants to fine-tune the “data flow lifecycle from collection and acquisition, to transporting, ingesting, curating, exploiting, disseminating, and disposing of IC data.”

The strategy outlines four main goals: improve data management, ensure data is human and AI-ready with new services and tools, directly work with the private sector and academia, and develop intelligence officers who are fluent in how data works.

The ODNI’s strategy calls for automation to prepare and label data to reduce the time it takes to absorb datasets from days to minutes.

Also, every time data is collected or bought, intel agencies will have to lay out how it will be transported, ingested, curated, exploited, disseminated, and disposed of “with consideration for its ethical and appropriate use, consistent with law and policy,” according to the strategy.

That type of data management will help solidify “minimum common standards for the use, protection, dissemination, interoperability, and generation of IC data.”

Bolstering partnerships is another key pillar of the strategy, which could help with not having a full data workforce.

“Data acumen has to become a core skill for every member of the workforce, not just for data professionals. The workforce and supporting contractors need to know, understand, and value data utilisation and sharing for mission value and insight,” the document said.

But there’s still the need for people who can make that happen.

“How do we work across, not only inside our buildings, but across the IC, across the US government, swith our industry academic partners, so that we can really bring the best of what there is to bear in support of our mission,” said Lakshmi Raman, the Central Intelligence Agency’s director of AI innovation, during a panel discussion at the Intelligence and National Security Summit recently.

“We don't have enough resources to do everything that we need to do.”

Defense One: DRI: Meri Talk: United States Senate: ExecutiveGov: DRI

If you like this website and use the comprehensive 6,500-plus service supplier Directory, you can get unrestricted access, including the exclusive in-depth Directors Report series, by signing up for a Premium Subscription.