It’s coming into the home stretch and it’s Lockheed…it’s Northrop…it’s IBM, no it’s Lockheed again…
As I first reported near the end of December, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking to build the “worlds largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics.” The system dubbed as Next Generation Identification would track everything from iris patterns, to tattoos, to palm, and finger prints in order to keep tabs on the biometrics of bad guys.
Today, the Associated Press is reporting that the original list of contractors (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Accenture, Electronic Data System, SAIC, IBM and others) has been whittled down to three: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and IBM. FBI spokespeople also indicated Tuesday that the contract is “expected to be awarded this week.” The Northrop Grumman and IBM lead integrators have a sorted group of three other subcontractor/team members that include Raytheon, General Dynamics and BearingPoint for Northrop and Unisys, ManTech and SRA International for IBM. The big money will come for one of these three lead integrators, but there will also be another contract awarded to competing biometric bigwigs.
Jeremy Grant of the Standford group seems to think, “There will be a big focus on competition for what is arguably the next big contract within the industry.” Coupled with the President’s just released budget proposal and a Government Executive article’s findings that stable or increased budgets don’t always translate into an increase in contract opportunities. To wit:
“Although DHS’ fiscal 2009 IT budget is flat compared with the fiscal 2008 IT budget, the potential IT contracts from the budget are declining, said Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at the McLean, Va., market research firm Federal Sources.”
This contract is going to be huge. $1 billion dollars is potentially up in the air on this and I’m glad to see Lockheed Martin and a bevy of industry coalitions are vying for the contract. But despite the fan-fare associated with this contract, close eyes from Congress and privacy watchdogs will be watching the implementation and early tests for this dubious and highly sensitive biometric technology.
Don’t change that RSS feed…
I am so sick of hearing about the Next Generation. We were much better. F Picard.
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