General Dynamics [GD] this month received a potential $93.3 million contract from the Department of State to produce a new border travel document, the PASS Card, continuing a series of recent wins in secure document and credentialing business for the company.
GD’s Information Technology (IT) business unit earlier this month won a potential $28.8 million contract from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), an arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) charged with administering immigration and naturalization functions, to upgrade document production facilities. The upgrade is being driven by FIPS-201 requirements.
GD’s IT business also was recently selected by the Government Printing Office (GPO) to help it begin producing electronic documents and identification cards so that the GPO can serve other federal agencies with these needs, including meeting HSPD-12 requirements. GD hasn’t announced the GPO contract nor its value as the award is under protest.
For the PASS Card contract GD beat L-1 Identity Solutions [GD], which Stanford Group investment analyst Jeremy Grant had believed was the favorite for the award.
Grant says the loss is “significant” for L-1, calling it a “setback in L-1’s efforts to establish a major presence on all U.S. identity solutions programs.” Whether L-1 decides to protest the source selection may be known later this week. The State Department will be sending written debriefs on the rationale for its selection to all the bidders this week.
The PASS Card contract has a base-year, which is for $10.7 million, and four one-year options. The contract calls for the delivery of card stock, electronic chips, printers and software. GD will install its card personalization suite in various State Department production facilities.
The State Department will begin accepting applications for the PASS Cards beginning Feb. 1 as a less expensive alternative to the traditional passport. The new cards are expected to begin arriving in the mail this spring. Each PASS Card will cost $45 for adults and $35 for children. A passport costs $97 for adults and $82 for children.
The PASS Cards will be for land and sea travel only for U.S. citizens arriving back in the country from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda. The document meets the requirements of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.
To speed the processing of individuals at the border the new card will have a vicinity read radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that will contain a unique identification number that will link the card to stored records about that person in a government database. No personal information will be written into the RFID chip. A digital photo of the person will appear on the card as will certain basic biographical data.
GD hasn’t disclosed who its teammates are for PASS Card. Analysts believe LaserCard Corp. [LCRD], which makes secure identification cards, is likely on the GD team. Morgan Keegan investment analyst Brian Ruttenbur estimates that LaserCard’s revenues as a subcontractor to GD could range between $12 million and $40 million.
All the security features that will be part of the card must still be finalized by the State Department, Chris Jensen, vice president for secure identity solutions at GD IT, tells TR2.
“Our challenge is to really support them in some of the decisions they have to make and to bring in the capabilities on a fast track because it is a tight timeline,” Jensen says.
GD’s expertise in credentialing technology stems from its acquisition of the former IT firm Anteon International. That legacy includes work on the Navy Smart Card program, the Pentagon’s Common Access Card Program, the Permanent Resident Card, Green Card, Border Crossing Card, and more recently prototypes of the First Responder Authentication Credential for DHS, and is even working as a subcontractor for a secure drivers’ license for Canada’s Alberta Province. The work GD will be doing under its new contract with USCIS will be replacing equipment that one of Anteon’s business units installed over 10 years ago.
Reader Contract to Unisys
As the PASS Card program rolls out, DHS will have to upgrade card reader infrastructure at U.S. sea and land ports of entry. Shortly after GD’s contract was awarded, Customs and Border Protection selected Unisys [UIS] for a potential five-year, $62 million contract to provide the reader technology upgrades to the nation’s 39 top land ports, which account for 95 percent of all land border crossings into the U.S.
The upgrades will also allow enhanced driver’s licenses being produced in several states and Canadian provinces to work with the reader infrastructure. The award, which includes $37 million in the first year of the contract, was made under the EAGLE program.
Under the contract Unisys will also be supplying new license plate reader technologies along the northern and southern U.S. borders.