DOJ plans modernization of biometric service for criminal, civil checks

The Department of Justice’s Office of the Chief Information Officer is planning to replace the Joint Automated Booking System (JABS) and Civil Applicant System (CAS) with a single, new contractor-owned/contractor-operated managed service for CJIS Next Generation Identification (NGI) biometric functionality. This new service, called the Justice Biometric Identity Service (JBIS), will provide modern, scalable, and extensible web, mobile and cloud technologies for its existing and future customer agencies at reduced costs.

The current JABS/CAS program, established in 1999, is one of the oldest existing shared enterprise IT systems at the DOJ, supporting both criminal identification and civil background checks, and many other law enforcement capabilities. The JABS system processes criminal transactions, while the CAS system processes civil transactions. Together, the JABS/CAS systems support approximately 6,000 users from over 400 agencies. These users process over 400,000 transactions per year using approximately 1,000 biometric workstations. Both JABS and CAS systems are at the end of their technological lifecycle and do not meet users’ needs.

In preparation for the modernization of the JABS/CAS systems, the DOJ Executive Advisory Board for CJIS Services, and its NGI Service Delivery Working Group performed initial market research on leading vendors, solutions, and service providers. This research revealed that the industry is shifting away from custom-built systems and on-prem hosted commercial off-the-shelf systems and is instead opting for cloud-based managed biometric services, using leading vendors. These vendors offer the latest industry features, high levels of support and maintenance, and cost savings through economies of scale, according to the analysis.

Based on research findings, the DOJ plans to replace JABS and CAS with JBIS, a new single, integrated solution. Leveraging the economy of scale available to State CSAs that have adopted this model, JBIS will use a commercial service provider to deliver NGI biometric functionality using the latest technologies to provide a platform that delivers all NGI capabilities in a FISMA Moderate compliant cloud environment. JBIS will also be tailored to meet the unique requirements of the DOJ CSA and its user agencies.

To identify any small business vendors that currently provide a service that could be used to replace the existing JABS and CAS systems (including all components – back-end services, client biometric data capture software, etc.) the DOJ Justice Management Division is conducting research through a Request for Information (RFI) process. The DOJ would like to receive answers to questions posed in the RFI that will help in determining if existing services are available to the DOJ. All questions must be submitted on or before Wednesday, August 19, 2023, at 10:00 AM Eastern Time to be considered.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  cloud services  |  criminal ID  |  Department of Justice  |  NGI - Next Generation Identification  |  RFI