Accenture Federal Services wins $94M digital identity contract with US Army

Accenture Federal Services (AFS) has won a $94 million contract with the U.S. Army to “maintain and transform” the agency’s Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) system.

Accenture Federal Services is a subsidiary of the multinational consulting firm Accenture LLP, which exclusively provides services to the U.S. federal government.

The contract is intended to automate the Army’s traditional method of manually provisioning user accounts, which will allow it “to make real-time access control decisions while sustaining current ICAM operations for more than 1,500 applications.”

Capabilities that will be used in the revamp of the Army’s ICAM system include Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), Privileged Access Management, and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

Accenture claims these capabilities will enable more effective information sharing, while also “managing risks and protecting systems against unauthorized access.”

Accenture’s Army digital identity and access management contract has a period of performance of one year, with three 12-month option periods.

Commenting on the move, Dana Oliver, an Accenture Federal Services managing director and U.S. Army programs lead says, “network modernization is essential to fight and win in all domains — air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.”

Though the announcement doesn’t make any explicit mention of biometrics, biometrics are currently in wide use by the U.S. military, which uses them for access control at bases, amongst other things.

In April 2022, Idemia National Security Solutions (NSS) demonstrated a physical and logical access control system with biometric sensors at the Redstone Arsenal U.S. Army post in Huntsville, Alabama.

The U.S. military’s use of biometric identification is continuing to expand, in some cases even being applied to neighboring civilians.

Two hundred Uber drivers in the U.S. state of Texas recently were forced to register their biometric data to take part in a ride-sharing program near the Fort Worth naval air station.

Article Topics

Accenture  |  government purchasing  |  identity access management (IAM)  |  multifactor authentication  |  U.S. Army  |  U.S. Government