After waiting out an unsuccessful protest, Northrop Grumman [NOC] said on Monday that it has received a 42-month, $95 million contract to develop the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) next-generation biometric identification services system.

Northrop Grumman will be the systems developer and integrator for the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) program, which replaces the current IDENT biometric database and system managed by the DHS Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM).DHS Logo DHS

OBIM originally selected Northrop Grumman for the HART award last September but a subsequent protest by Leidos [LDOS], one of the losing bidders, held up the eventual contract award until the Government Accountability Office last month ruled in DHS’ favor (Defense Daily, Jan. 19).

“As threats continue to evolve, HART will offer a more accurate, robust way to identify adversaries in a secure, affordable manner that scales to future needs and ensures interagency data sharing,” Bobby Lentz, vice president, Global Cyber Solutions, Cyber and Intelligence Missions Solutions Division at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, said in a statement.

Initially, Northrop Grumman will migrate the current capabilities of IDENT, which is primarily fingerprint-based but includes limited face and iris matching capabilities, create a new data architecture, and provide a new system development and testing environment for HART. Eventually, the company will provide stronger face and iris matching capabilities, a biometric fusion capability, and improved business processing workflows.

The HART system is being designed to accommodate additional biometric modalities and handle an increasing number of biometric records and transactions.