The United Kingdom’s Home Office this month selected Raytheon [RTN] for a $1.3 billion contract to develop and install a border security system that will allow British authorities to check the background of persons entering and exiting the country prior to boarding.

Under e-Borders, once a person purchases a ticket to travel to or from the U.K. by air, sea or rail, the respective carrier will deliver that person’s background data to the relevant customs and immigration agencies. The data will then be checked against various watch lists to identify those involved in abuse of U.K. immigration laws, serious and organized crime, and terrorism. Foreign nationals will not be tracked during their stay in the U.K.

Raytheon beat a British Telecom team, which included Lockheed Martin [LMT], for the contract. In two years, Raytheon’s Trusted Borders team is expected to have the back end processing system in place to allow border management agencies to receive information on passengers and crew entering and exiting the country.

“By mid-2009 we plan to cover all high risk routes into the U.K. and at least half of all journeys into the U.K. by foreign nationals,” says Jacqui Smith, the U.K. Home Secretary. “We aim to have 95 percent covered by 2010 and all before 2014.”

A pilot project done in advance of e-Borders has tracked over 35 million passengers and resulted in the capture of over 1,000 criminals and checked out over 15,000 suspects, Smith says.

Initially it appears that e-Borders will not rely on biometric technology to check passengers and crew against various criminal and terrorism databases. However, Raytheon says that biometrics are planned for the program, but the specifics will be worked out with the Home Office over the next several years. The company says it is not able to discuss program details at the direction of the Home Office.

Biometric technology was part of each team’s bids and Raytheon’s partner here is identity assurance software provider Daon, Jane Chappell, vice president of strategic intelligence systems in Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems segment, tells TR2. Daon provides the biometric middleware to the authority requirements that will give Raytheon the flexibility to add further biometrics as additional requirements become firm.

Other members of Raytheon’s team include: Accenture [ACN], which is responsible for training end users on the system and helping to measure the overall business benefits of the system; the U.K.’s Serco, which is responsible for infrastructure and service management; the U.K.’s Detica, which will perform intelligence and analytics services; Britain’s QinetiQ, which is responsible for security accreditation and human factors; European information technology services provider Steria, which will develop the agency interfaces; and Cap Gemini, which will develop the business architecture and design business processes. Accenture leads a team that includes Raytheon for the U.S. VISIT entry and exit tracking program.

Raytheon is responsible for systems integration, travel services and project management. As the systems integrator Raytheon will have to deliver a system that is highly reliable and available all day, every day given the large numbers of people that will have to be quickly vetted, Chappell says.

Chappell points out that while e-Borders is a large information technology (IT) program, it also represents a change in the way the U.K. government and various transportation carriers do business. That means Raytheon “needs to work with them to change their business processes,” she says. “We have a business led IT-enabled system.”

The win gives Raytheon a strong position in both domestic and international homeland security programs.