New capabilities being added in May to beta.SAM.gov — the General Services Administration’s consolidated procurement website — will come with new, stringent security protocols requiring certain users to verify their accounts are connected to real-world people.
On May 24, the entity registration functions of SAM.gov will be moved over to beta.SAM.gov and the latter will lose the “beta” and become the one and only SAM.gov. At that time, GSA plans to institute new security measures for entity registration — voluntary at first but mandatory come October.
As GSA consolidates all of its procurement tools into a single site, the agency has been incorporating Login.gov as the single sign-on for all of these capabilities. When the System for Award Management, or SAM, registration functions are ported over, the system will take advantage of Login’s identity proofing capability for an added layer of security.
The identity proofing — verifying that an online account is connected to a specific, real person — will be for users who manage organizations’ SAM registration, which includes the unique identifier used to reference entities receiving federal contracts and grants and all the identifiable information about that organization.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2021/02/gsa-verify-identities-some-sam-users-after-transition/172216/
FAR 52.204-7 requires bidders, with some limited exceptions, to be registered in SAM at the time of bid and to continue to be registered until time of award, during performance, and through final payment.
The registration site for organizations doing business with the federal government will be migrating to the new central website for all procurement systems, allowing the latter to drop the “beta” designation and clear up some confusing nomenclature.
