Notice of Intent to Sole Source NEC Advanced Identity Manager (AIM) Perpetual License Maintenance

This is a notice of intent to sole source as required by FAR 5.203. The Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 6.302-1 entitled, "Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Procurement Operations (OPO) intends to solicit and award on a sole source basis a contract action to NEC National Security Systems, Inc. (NEC NSS), UEI: RLRZWEARX7ME, 4310 Wilson Blvd., Suite 505, Arlington, VA 22203, to acquire NEC Advanced Identity Manager (AIM) Perpetual License Maintenance. This requirement is for maintenance for existing perpetual NEC Facial licenses for the Face Enterprise-wide Software Advanced Identity Manager eXtensible Multimodal (AIM-XM) and Advanced Identity Matcher - Edge Source (AIM-ES) products and assessment tools for unlimited biometric quantities, on unlimited hardware platforms, and at unlimited lcoations. Pursuant to the FAR Subpart 6.302-1, - Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements, NEC Advanced Identity Manager software maintenance is essential to the continued proper functioning of the NEC NSS AIM software, which DHS uses to perform its essential tasks of biometric identification in support of screening, vetting, and credentialing of individuals seeking immigration benefits, employment, or entry/exit to the United States. Only NEC NSS can provide the annual software maintenance to the existing NEC AIM Software currently operational within IDENT because no other firm product can interconnect with and perform the necessary customized maintenance of the NEC NSS AIM software. The NEC NSS AIM software itself is customized, with the algorithm having been developed and fine-tuned by NEC NSS over the years to where only NEC NSS can provide the maintenance for such an application. If the Government were not able to procure the necessary annual software maintenance, the system would be at risk for potential security vulnerabilities and system malfunctions. Additionally, these systems will naturally experience degradation in system performance, negatively impacting the ability to make operational decisions such as, but not limited to, national security and public safety, identifying known or suspected terrorists, supporting enforcement actions, granting, or denying benefits such as immigration benefits or trusted traveler status for OBIM, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) who are currently using the NEC AIM product. OBIM procured perpetual licenses for the above stated DHS component organizations for facial matching capabilities to perform biometric identification in support of screening, vetting, and credentialing of individuals seeking immigration benefits, employment, or entry/exit to the United States. A DHS wide license enables continuity of efforts across multiple system implementations and allow for cost savings associated with future implementations. As a result, if OBIM were not able to procure the annual maintenance for the NEC Face Enterprise-wide Software, at a minimum, each component would need to separately procure that annual maintenance support from NEC at a cost of $8M per DHS component, for a total of $40M for a one-year period of performance as compared to OBIM procuring the annual maintenance support from NEC on behalf of the entire department for a cost of $8M over a one-year period of performance. Procuring an alternate product other than NEC NSS AIM would not enable continuity of efforts across multiple system implementations and not allow for cost savings associated with future implementations. The IDENT infrastructure (Transaction Manager I (TM) and Matcher Interface Service (MIS)) have been designed around the NEC NSS AIM product for facial and iris recognition. The TM and MIS architecture would need to be rebuilt for both IDENT and HART in order to accommodate a different manufacturer's matching product, which would increase the cost by at least $50M per system, for a total of $100M, which was estimated based on the previous costs required to build each system. DHS network architecture, maintenance platforms, and configuration systems require the use of NEC NSS's product to ensure interoperability with other DHS systems at all data centers. The NEC NSS Facial Software must be configured in accordance with DHS OCIO system architecture requirements. The use of other products would result in interoperability, compatibility, interface issues that would preclude the system's support team from providing efficient and effective customer support. There are many steps that must occur before any new technology can be utilized. One critical step is to test new products in a laboratory environment before implementing in a production environment. It is overly unrealistic to suggest that adding a new cloud instance of a product would be close to providing a completely operational product in a DHS production environment. If OBIM were to replace the NEC Face Enterprise-wide Software without the minimum critical step of testing in a non-production environment, it would be new development and OBIM would have to contract for the entire lifecycle of the work to install, build, integrate, test, and compute face matching templates for the new system. The templates regeneration alone previously took six months when OBIM transitioned to the NEC software. The Chief Information Officer published the DHS Instruction 026-11-001, on September 11, 2023, and OBIM's task to strengthen the Instruction is to remediate any testing deficiencies in OBIM's face recognition-based systems. On July 31, 2024, the OBIM Director signed a memo to establish an OBIM Biometric Laboratory Environment (BLE). The BLE will be dedicated testing environment for evaluating new and existing biometric matcher technologies. This Matcher Marketplace will enable OBIM to perform the kind of test necessary to compare matcher service providers. The BLE is scheduled to be operational in June 2025. Without extensive testing, it is impossible to determine if the other products could replace the current customized facial license software. OBIM would need to conduct a series of first article testing to determine if the accuracy of the vendor's facial license software will achieve the same level of accuracy OBIM currently has with its current customized and fine-tuned matcher. First article testing is imperative to understand the accuracy of the product, specific to OBIM data. The risk in executing a new facial license product without proper testing before going - live would cause nationwide catastrophic delays to stakeholder operations. Any drop in accuracy would result in OBIM not being able to perform its mission to DHS internal and external Stakeholders. A decrease in accuracy would result in an increased workload on the Biometric Support Center (BSC) human resources, resulting in missed Service Level Agreements (SLA's) with OBIM stakeholders. For example, a 1.84% drop in face matching accuracy for a given stakeholder would result in a 13x manpower requirements increase to sustain their day-to-day operations. The potential increase in -4 Fingerprint Identification Numbers (FINs) would require a semi-annual process to clean up, taking away valuable time and resources for maintaining mission critical operations. -4 FINs are unknown biometrics that don't match anything else on record in IDENT. Additional funding and manpower would be needed to manage the increase in workload for OBIM and its stakeholders. The extent of which would only be discovered after going live, if executed without proper testing beforehand. The Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology System (HART) will replace IDENT system upon Initial Operation Capability (IOC). Anticipated IOC date for HART is fourth quarter fiscal year 2026. While OBIM is still using IDENT, a transition to another contract mechanism without critical disruptions to system operational availability would be very difficult and cost prohibitive due to the size and complexity of the IDENT system requirements. Replacing the vendor that is supporting IDENT at this time would be synonymous with the cost and time associated with the initial development and testing for the HART face matching capability but multiplied by a factor of two to account for replacing the face matching capability in both the HART and IDENT systems to include retesting with all +55 interfacing stakeholders for each system. There are over 1.2 billion face images that have been feature-extracted for use with the NEC AIM XM product in both OBIM/IDENT and OBIM/HART systems that would need to be re-extracted for a replacement face matching product. The timeframe to complete such an endeavor is a minimum of 6 - 12 months for both HART and IDENT. It is anticipated that the other four DHS components would have to undergo a similar feature extraction endeavor for every system that the AIM-ES/XM product is implemented in. OBIM is in the process of establishing a Biometric Laboratory Environment (BLE) for the purpose of testing matcher software. This matcher marketplace will enable OBIM to perform the necessary tests to compare matcher service providers. The anticipated schedule for the BLE to be operational is June of 2025. OBIM is requesting a sole source to NEC for a 12-month base plus two 12-month option periods. This will provide OBIM the necessary time to stand-up and test the BLE environment and then test vendors facial software products to fully compete this requirement in FY27. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is soley at the discretion of the Government. This notice of intent is NOT a Request for Quotation (RFQ) for competitive quotes. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. Interested parties may submit any information for consideration by the Government to Amy Driver at Amy.Driver@hq.dhs.gov and Ronald Jean Baptiste at Ronald.Jean-Baptiste@hq.dhs.gov with solicitation 70RDA124R00000007 referenced in the subjet line. The period of performance for this contract is as follows: Base Period: September 30, 2024 - September 29, 2025 Option Period 1: September 30, 2025 - September 29, 2026 Option Period 2: September 30, 2026 - September 29, 2027 The place of performance for this contract is as follows: 9325 Cypress Loop Road, Bay Saint Louis, MS 39529