Government Computer News
Justice, FBI to overhaul fingerprint and case management systems
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TechnoratiThe Litigation Case Management System
What it is: The Justice Department seeks to replace dozens of conflicting litigation case management systems with a single application.
Why Justice is doing this: The Office of Management and Budget has appointed the department to be the lead agency for the Case Management Line of Business Consolidation initiative. LCMS will be the first rollout under that line of business, Justice officials said.
When this will happen: Justice plans to award the LCMS contract next March.
How the project will materialize: Justice already has issued a draft statement of work calling on vendors to create a system that will allow its components to share information easily. The department likely will hold an industry day by mid-September.
Who will use the system: LCMS will provide information tailored for the use of trial attorneys, their supervisors and the senior agency appointees who run the department. The department plans to field LCMS to its 94 U.S. Attorneys Offices and six major litigating divisions at headquarters.
Show me the money: LCMS likely will cost about $15 million.
Next Generation IAFIS
What it is: The Next Generation Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System acquisition is intended to create a more accurate version of the FBI’s fingerprint comparison application and add more functions to the existing software.
Why the FBI is doing this: The bureau has been embarrassed recently by widely publicized reports of incidents in which its vaunted IAFIS system failed to match criminals’ fingerprints with available evidence, sometimes with disastrous results. The National Criminal Information Center in Clarksburg, W.Va., which runs IAFIS, has received requests from its law enforcement and military clients to up- grade IAFIS.
How it will be built: The FBI has commissioned a contractor to study technical options for the project. The bureau likely will seek bids via the National Institutes of Health’s CIO-SP2i governmentwide acquisition vehicle. Major system integrators already are evaluating the project with an eye to bidding on it.
When it will happen: The FBI likely will award the contract next fall.
Show me the money: Next Generation IAFIS could cost between $75 million and $200 million.
The overhauls to major systems are years away from having an impact, but both are gaining momentum with the pending release of requests for proposals.
The FBI program, known as the Next Generation Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, is the larger and less mature acquisition and calls for several major improvements in IAFIS’ features, such as the existing interstate mugshot transfer application.
Meanwhile, the Justice Management Division is preparing to kick off its Litigation Case Management System acquisition with an industry day in mid-September, according to Federal Sources Inc., a market research firm in McLean, Va.
Justice already has issued a draft statement of work stating that LCMS will be deployed to the 94 U.S. Attorneys Offices and the six major departmental offices at headquarters that carry out litigation.
Both programs are designed to help Justice and the FBI improve their information sharing within the department and across law enforcement agencies.
The FBI project calls for the selected vendor to design, build and maintain the new system. Industry estimates of the value of the contract range up to $200 million. FSI estimated Next Generation IAFIS at $75 million.
The FBI is running the procurement out of its IT contracts unit in Clarksburg, W.Va., which renewed Lockheed Martin Corp.’s existing omnibus contract to run IAFIS for one year with five option years, according to contracting office officials.
IAFIS is closely related to the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology’s IDENT project (see Page 28).
Accenture Ltd. runs IDENT via its Smart Border Alliance team of contractors that is carrying out the U.S. Visit program.
Some fingerprint information from IAFIS now flows to IDENT. As DHS implements Secretary Michael Chertoff’s directive to collect 10 fingerprints from travelers rather than the two-fingerprint approach IDENT currently uses, IDENT and IAFIS will gain additional compatibility.
The FBI already has begun a study of technologies for Next Generation IAFIS, according to the Clarksburg contracting office.
Industry business development sources suggested that the bureau would not award a contract under Next Generation IAFIS until at least October 2006, partly because Lockheed Martin’s contract will continue through September 2006.
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