Source tiers and evidence status

Sources are classified by how independent they are of the claim being made.

Tier 1 — Primary record

Government contracting records and official publications: SAM.gov notices, Grants.gov notices, budget justification documents, official service and agency releases, and filings made under legal obligation. Sufficient on their own to support VERIFIED.

Tier 2 — Official statement

On-the-record statements by named officials or executives in an identifiable venue: testimony, press conferences, earnings calls, published programmes. Supports VERIFIED when corroborated by a second independent source.

Tier 3 — Interested party claim

Statements by an organisation about itself or its market. Recorded as CLAIMED and attributed to the party making the claim.

Tier 4 — Derived

Values produced by a documented rule from other recorded evidence — for example inferring a programme office from a named command. Recorded as INFERRED, never presented as fact.

Every stored claim carries exactly one status. The order is strict: MISSING < INFERRED < CLAIMED < VERIFIED.

• MISSING — no evidence exists in our record. We display the gap rather than filling it with an estimate.
• INFERRED — produced by a recorded derivation rule from other evidence. The rule is stored with the claim.
• CLAIMED — asserted by one identifiable source, attributed to that source.
• VERIFIED — supported by a Tier 1 primary record, or by two independent sources with no shared interest in the claim.

• A claim is only promoted when the supporting record is attached to it. Promotion without an attached source is not permitted.
• Two sources that republish the same original are one source, not two.
• An organisation's statement about itself never promotes a claim past CLAIMED.
• When a supporting record is withdrawn or superseded, the claim is demoted and the change is dated.
• Conflicting evidence is preserved. We record the conflict rather than picking a winner silently, and the published text says the point is contested.

Every Signal carries a published date, and a modified date whenever its substance changes. Calendar and opportunity records carry the date they were last confirmed against their source, so readers can judge staleness rather than assume currency.

• Publish classified, export-controlled, or unlawfully obtained material.
• Present an estimate as a recorded figure.
• Round or reframe a number in a way that changes its meaning.
• Cite a source we have not read, or a document we cannot point to.

These standards work alongside our intelligence methodology and editorial and corrections policy.