Washington prepares to tender remote ID proofing upgrade for Login.gov

The U.S. government has scheduled a briefing for vendors interested in bidding on work to improve Login.gov, Washington’s wobbly single sign-on service.

The General Services Administration, which is responsible for Login.gov, is looking for new remote ID-proofing software for single sign-on service, according to notice ID 47QPCAR0001. The estimated minimum value of the contract is $10.1 million, but it could surpass $100 million, according to planning documents.

Officials working with the watchdog agency want more of the public able to use online services offered by federal, state, tribal, territorial and local governments. The project is expected to improve biometric comparisons, ID document captures and other service categories under evolving privacy restrictions and data rights.

The GSA has had a number of problems operating Login.gov. It is being investigated by a House committee following accusations that staff misled other agencies it was trying to cajole into integrating the software. Allegedly, it inflated the security assessment of Login.gov.

Earlier in the year, there was an avoidable misperception about when to use biometric face scans through Login.gov to communicate with the Internal Revenue Service.

The August 12 pre-solicitation conference will show up to 500 participants how government solicitations, quotations and evaluations work.

Links to several documents relevant to this project have been posted by the GSA.

The keyword cloud for the Login.gov is huge, but there is a reasonably concise description of deliverables on Acquisition Gateway.

Only commercially available products and services will be accepted. And it all must comply with digital ID, enrollment and ID proofing, authentication and life-cycle management rules found in NIST 800-63-3, which are currently being updated.

The list of demographic groups that the GSA wants using Login.gov is voluminous. It could almost be described as any resident older than 13 years.

Also targeted are people with no permanent address and no state IDs. That is tricky in that the GSA is calling for better document authentication.

Identification evidence document authentication has to perform at 99 percent on “quality” images in ID from all U.S., territory, tribal, state, local and foreign agencies.

And the chosen contractor will have to demonstrate its biometric systems is successful at least 97 percent of the time for all populations that the GSA wants addressed.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  GSA  |  Login.gov  |  remote authentication  |  tender  |  U.S. Government