SenateS. 5601119th Congress
Insider Threat Reporting and Security Guidance Act of 2026
Full Text
Official text as published. Use Ctrl+F / Cmd+F to search within the document.
[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 5601 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 5601
To require the Secretary of Defense to establish reporting requirements
and voluntary guidance for large artificial intelligence contractors.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 29, 2026
Mr. Banks (for himself and Mrs. Gillibrand) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed
Services
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Defense to establish reporting requirements
and voluntary guidance for large artificial intelligence contractors.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Insider Threat Reporting and
Security Guidance Act of 2026''.
SEC. 2. INSIDER THREAT REPORTING AND VOLUNTARY GUIDANCE FOR LARGE
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CONTRACTORS.
(a) Covered Artificial Intelligence Contractor Defined.--In this
section, the term ``covered artificial intelligence contractor'' means
a contractor that--
(1) has entered, or seeks to enter into, one or more
contracts, with a total value of not less than $100,000,000,
with the Department of Defense for an artificial intelligence
system or services that use an artificial intelligence system;
and
(2)(A) has incurred, during the 3-year period preceding the
date on which any such contract was entered into, not less than
$1,000,000,000 in artificial intelligence-related research and
development expenditures, measured on a rolling basis and
aggregated with any other person that controls, is controlled
by, or is under common control with such contractor; or
(B) uses or proposes to use, in the performance of such
contract or contracts, an artificial intelligence model
developed or controlled by a person that meets the expenditure
criteria described in subparagraph (A).
(b) Reporting Requirements.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall issue
regulations establishing reporting requirements for covered
artificial intelligence contractors to support the protection
of Department of Defense systems, missions, personnel,
operations, and supply chains from counterintelligence,
security, and other national security risks arising from the
security practices of such contractors.
(2) Required matters.--
(A) In general.--The regulations issued pursuant to
paragraph (1) shall require, at a minimum, that a
covered artificial intelligence contractor reports to
the Secretary--
(i) all policies, practices, and security
measures relating to--
(I) personnel vetting;
(II) insider threat mitigation;
(III) access controls, including
the circumstances under which
contractors, subcontractors, cloud
providers, and other third parties are
granted access to any artificial
intelligence model, model weights,
training infrastructure, or other
sensitive assets, and the material
security controls governing such
access;
(IV) supply chain security; and
(V) the prevention of theft,
tampering, sabotage, or any other
unauthorized transfer or modification
of any artificial intelligence model or
model weights;
(ii) any known or suspected material
incident affecting the security, integrity, or
availability of any artificial intelligence
model or model weights developed or used,
including any incident in which a person
compromises or exploits any artificial
intelligence model or model weights in a manner
that could materially affect the performance of
a Department contract, national security, or
the operations, security, or mission
effectiveness of the Department, including
through--
(I) espionage;
(II) unauthorized access;
(III) theft;
(IV) exfiltration;
(V) sabotage;
(VI) manipulation;
(VII) a compromise of the software,
hardware, cloud, data, or other supply
chain component used to develop, train,
fine-tune, evaluate, secure, or deploy
any such model or model weights;
(VIII) the poisoning, corruption,
manipulation, or unauthorized
alteration of training data, fine-
tuning data, retrieval corpora, model
checkpoints, system prompts, safety
filters, monitoring systems, evaluation
pipelines, or model-update mechanisms;
(IX) the discovery of a material
vulnerability, exploit, backdoor, or
failure of access controls that could
permit unauthorized modification,
extraction, degradation, or misuse of
any such model or model weights; or
(X) any other effort;
(iii) the defense-relevant and national
security-relevant capabilities, access
pathways, and material misuse risks, as
determined by the Secretary, of the most
powerful artificial intelligence models
developed, controlled, or used by such
contractor in the performance of a contract
with the Department;
(iv) any materially concerning model
behavior, including materially increased
capability for a cyber offense, evasion of
safeguards, deceptive behavior, unauthorized
autonomous action, or other behavior that could
materially affect national security, the
performance of a Department contract, or the
operations, security, or mission effectiveness
of the Department;
(v) any attempt to obtain unauthorized
access to, acquire, influence, or exfiltrate
sensitive information, systems, or intellectual
property relating to any artificial
intelligence model developed, controlled, or
used by the contractor; and
(vi) any other known or suspected acute
national security risk relating to the
compromise, misuse, loss, exfiltration,
misalignment, or exploitation of artificial
intelligence models developed, controlled, or
used by the contractor that could materially
affect national security, the performance of a
Department contract, or the operations,
security, or mission effectiveness of the
Department.
(B) Scope.--The required matters described in
subparagraph (A) apply to a covered artificial
intelligence contractor, including with respect to any
artificial intelligence model developed or controlled
by another person and used, or proposed for use, by the
covered artificial intelligence contractor in the
performance of a contract with the Department. The
Secretary may require the covered artificial
intelligence contractor to obtain from the person who
developed or controls such model any information the
Secretary determines necessary to carry out this
section.
(C) Timing of reporting requirements.--
(i) Initial submission.--A covered
artificial intelligence contractor shall submit
to the Secretary of Defense the required
matters described in subparagraph (A) as part
of any offer, proposal, bid, or other response
to a solicitation for a contract.
(ii) Continuing duty to certify.--Not less
frequently than once every 90 days, the covered
artificial intelligence contractor shall
certify to the Secretary of Defense that the
information submitted under clause (i) remains
accurate and complete in all material respects.
(3) Notification of acute national security incidents.--
(A) In general.--The regulations issued pursuant to
paragraph (1) shall require that not later than 72
hours after becoming aware of any information,
incident, or development that presents an acute
national security risk to the United States, the
covered artificial intelligence contractor shall--
(i) notify the Secretary of Defense of the
nature of national security risk, including any
risk relating to model weight security as
described in subparagraph (A)(ii), any risk
described in clauses (iv), (v), and (vi) or
subparagraph (A), and any other category of
risk the Secretary may specify; and
(ii) include in such notification, to the
extent known at the time of the notification--
(I) a description of the
information, incident, or development;
(II) the date or approximate period
of occurrence and discovery;
(III) the affected model or
deployment environment;
(IV) the actual or suspected means
of compromise;
(V) whether any model weights,
training data, system prompts, source
code, evaluation data, safety systems,
or software dependencies were accessed,
altered, degraded, poisoned,
exfiltrated, or otherwise compromised;
(VI) an assessment of the actual or
potential impact on Department of
Defense missions, users, systems,
operations, or decision making;
(VII) any actions taken to contain,
mitigate, remediate, or investigate the
information, incident, or development;
(VIII) whether the information,
incident, or development has been
reported to any other Federal
department or agency; and
(IX) such other information as the
Secretary determines appropriate.
(B) Notification by the secretary.--If the
Secretary of Defense receives a notification under
subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall promptly transmit
such notification to the contracting officer for the
relevant contract, the Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Office, the Chief Information Officer of
the Department of Defense, the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the Artificial
Intelligence Security Center of the National Security
Agency, the Commander of the United States Cyber
Command, and the head of any other component of the
Department or Federal department or agency the
Secretary determines appropriate.
(C) Congressional notification.--If the Secretary
of Defense receives a notification under subparagraph
(A) or discovery an incident that would be reportable
under such clause, the Secretary shall--
(i) not later than 7 days after the date on
which the notification was received, submit to
the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate
and the Committee on Armed Services of the
House of Representatives notice of the
information, incident, or development that
includes--
(I) a summary description;
(II) the date or approximate period
of occurrence and discovery;
(III) the affected model or
deployment environment;
(IV) the actual or suspected means
of compromise, exfiltration,
manipulation, degradation, or misuse;
(V) an initial assessment of actual
or potential impact on Department
missions, users, systems, or
operations; and
(VI) any action taken or planned to
contain, mitigate, remediate, or
investigate the matter; and
(ii) provide the committees with additional
briefings or updates on the information,
incident, or development as material
information becomes available.
(D) Protection of information.--In the regulations
issued under paragraph (1), the Secretary of Defense
shall include procedures for the submission of
notifications under this paragraph, including
procedures to protect--
(i) classified information;
(ii) proprietary information;
(iii) trade secrets;
(iv) security-sensitive information; and
(v) information regarding vulnerabilities
that, if disclosed publicly, could reasonably
be expected to harm national security.
(E) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this
paragraph may be construed--
(i) to require public disclosure of
information in a manner inconsistent with
applicable protections for classified or
otherwise protected information; or
(ii) to limit any other reporting
obligation imposed by statute, regulation, or
contract.
(4) Clarity of requirements.--In the regulations issued
pursuant to paragraph (1), the Secretary shall provide clear
requirements with respect to the scope, timing, form, and
manner of the reporting, including--
(A) the appropriate protections the Department will
take to prevent unauthorized disclosure of classified
information, proprietary information, and controlled
unclassified information;
(B) any differentiated reporting requirements based
on--
(i) the sensitivity of the contract;
(ii) the capabilities of the relevant
models;
(iii) the degree of access of the
contractor or third parties to artificial
intelligence models or model weights; and
(iv) the significance of the risk to
Department missions or national security; and
(C) procedures to ensure that, if a covered
artificial intelligence contractor uses, or proposes to
use, in the performance of a contract with the
Department an artificial intelligence model developed
or controlled by another person, any information
required under this section is obtained from that
person.
(5) Consultation.--In developing the regulations under
paragraph (1), the Secretary may consult with--
(A) covered artificial intelligence contractors;
(B) the head of any Federal agency;
(C) industry participants; and
(D) any official of the Department that the
Secretary considers relevant, including acquisition,
counterintelligence, digital modernization, and
operational officials of the Department.
(c) Study and Voluntary Guidance on Insider Threat Risk Reduction
for Covered Artificial Intelligence Contractors.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall issue
voluntary guidance for covered artificial intelligence
contractors to reduce insider threat, espionage, and other
personnel-related security risks to sensitive artificial
intelligence assets of such contractors, with a focus on
threats from highly capable nation-state adversaries that
possess significant resources and the capability to conduct
sophisticated espionage or related operations.
(2) Assessment and updated guidance.--Not later than 1 year
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary
shall--
(A) complete an assessment of the risks described
in paragraph (1); and
(B) updated the guidance issued under such
paragraph based on the findings of that assessment.
(3) Contents.--The guidance required under paragraph (1),
including any updated guidance issued under paragraph (2)(B),
shall, at a minimum--
(A) identify categories of roles, responsibilities,
functions, systems, and access that may provide
material access to model weights, model internals,
training infrastructure, sensitive research
information, or other sensitive assets of the covered
artificial intelligence contractor, the compromise of
which could present a significant risk to Department
missions or national security;
(B) establish a tiered framework based on the
degree of access, sensitivity, and national security
risk involved, under which the most sensitive roles,
systems, and categories of access are associated with
the most stringent suggested security measures;
(C) assess the practices, and if appropriate
suggest preferred practices, relating to personnel
vetting, role-based access controls, compartmentation,
audit logging, anomaly detection, continuous
monitoring, incident escalation, and protection against
espionage, theft, sabotage, or unauthorized transfer,
including practices designed to address threats from
nation-state adversaries;
(D) address, for especially sensitive roles or
access, what personnel security measures, access
restrictions, or other safeguards are appropriate to
reduce heightened risks from nation-state adversaries;
and
(E) address such other measures as the Secretary
determines appropriate to protect Department missions
and national security from insider threat and espionage
risks arising from the security practices of covered
artificial intelligence contractors.
(4) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subsection shall
be construed to require a covered artificial intelligence
contractor to adopt any measure, practice, personnel policy,
access restriction, or other safeguard described in the
guidance issued under paragraph (1).
(5) Consultation.--In carrying out this subsection, the
Secretary may consult with covered artificial intelligence
contractors, the intelligence community, counterintelligence
officials, appropriate elements of the Department of Defense,
the heads of other Federal agencies, federally funded research
and development centers, and other relevant experts, as
determined appropriate by the Secretary.
(d) Report to Congress.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall
submit to the congressional defense committees an unclassified
report, which may include a classified annex, on the
implementation of this section.
(2) Elements.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall
include--
(A) a summary of the progress made in developing
and implementing the reporting requirements under
subsection (b)(1);
(B) a summary of the progress made in issuing the
voluntary guidance under paragraph (1) of subsection
(c), including the initial guidance and any updated
guidance issued under paragraph (2) of such subsection;
(C) an assessment of any challenges, gaps, or
limitations identified by the Secretary in carrying out
this section; and
(D) any additional steps, authorities, resources,
or policy recommendations the Secretary determines
would be useful to advance the purposes of this
section.
(3) Congressional defense committees defined.--The term
``congressional defense committees'' has the meaning given the
term in section 101 of title 10, United States Code.
<all>