By Calvin Biesecker
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this week awarded Blanket Purchase Agreements to Bearing Point [BE], EDS Corp. [EDS] and XTec Inc. to compete for task orders to help the department meet a requirement that all federal employees and contractors go through background checks and use biometric-enabled credentials for access to government facilities and computer networks.
The initial agreements have no money attached to them as the first dollars are expected to flow once the first task order is issued, which will likely be for the establishment of a credentialing process at the DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C. Winning that first task order could be important in getting successive wins with other DHS components although there is no guarantee, industry sources tell Defense Daily.
Various federal agencies have been working to implement the requirements of Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-12 since the mandate was issued nearly four years ago. However, it’s only been in the last year or so that agencies have begun awarding contracts to firms approved by the General Services Administration (GSA) to establish credentialing processes.
Last spring EDS won a potential $66 million contract to provide HSPD-12 credentialing services to agencies who want their credentialing processes managed by the GSA’s Managed Services Office. In December the company won a smaller contract from the Veterans Administration to support the implementation and deployment of the Personal Identity Verification cards to all VA employees, affiliates and contractors.
Bearing Point, which actually held the Managed Services Office contract initially, setting up the back end technology processes and issuing the first credentials before losing out when EDS won a recompete of the work, currently is managing the HSPD-12 implementation for the Department of Health and Human Services.
XTec, which lost out to EDS during the Managed Services Office recompete, has been supplying HSPD-12 managed services to the Departments of Labor and State. XTec has supplied over 12,000 credentials to employees of each of the departments and has also begun supplying similar services to several smaller federal agencies.
The State Department appears to be further along than most federal agencies in implementing the mandates of HSPD-12, which call for more than just expensive flash passes. XTec said yesterday it has supplied over 4,000 card readers to the department for access control applications. Industry officials said that with most other agencies the physical and logical access control plans are still being worked out.
Lockheed Martin [LMT], Mount Airey Group, Aquilent and JRD & Associates are on the XTec team for DHS.
DHS is expected to announce its HSPD-12 implementation plans early next week.