The Transportation Security Administration last Friday awarded MorphoTrust a potential $85 million contract to provide a credential authentication system to verify only legitimate passengers and other personnel gain access to secure areas of airports.
The Credential Authentication Technology (CAT) system will be used by the agency’s Transportation Security Officers to assess various travel and identity credentials and display the authentication results. The CAT Request for Proposals, which was issued in December 2013, said the ordering period would be for seven years.
A TSA spokeswoman told Defense Daily via email on Monday that the agency is initially purchasing 12 CAT devices from MorphoTrust for qualification testing at the TSA Systems Integration Facility. The testing will determine if the systems will be operationally tested in an airport environment, she said.
TSA will spend about $180,000 on the 12 units, the spokeswoman said.
The planned acquisition of credential authentication systems by TSA is the second attempt by the agency to purchase systems to better verify the authenticity of credentials travelers, airport personnel, airline crews, law enforcement officers and Federal Air Marshals use to gain access to sterile areas of airports. MorphoTrust, which is part of France’s Safran Group, along with Britain’s BAE Systems and NCR Corp. [NCR], each received contracts from the agency in 2011 under the former CAT/Boarding Pass Scanning System program.
After pilot testing at three airports of the companies’ respective devices, TSA said the systems had issues matching and presenting names related to passenger IDs.
TSA said last summer that in addition to verifying the authenticity of photo identifications, the ID information would be validated against its Secure Flight database that is used to review passengers before they are allowed to board aircraft in the United States.
MorphoTrust, which is essentially the former identity solutions business of the former L-1 Identity Solutions company acquired by Safran, provides enrollment and credentialing solutions to the majority of state motor vehicle departments across the U.S., as well as similar services to other state agencies and TSA’s PreCheck trusted traveler program. The company also provides biometric technology devices.