EU tender for Portuguese biometric support closed with no winners

The European Union ran a competition for information systems, setting out a tender to the tune of around €2.1 million for a Portuguese buyer several months ago.

But it has cancelled the tender. The buyer was the Portuguese Administrative Modernization Agency (AMA), a public services body. The procurement would’ve been financed with EU funds, at least in part.

One of the three bidders was Biometrid who work closely with the AMA on identity verification. This includes a Digital Mobile Key, which allows Portuguese citizens to use their mobile phone and face to verify ID documents.

The EU tender was for biometric support for digital identity software with the implication that it was for first-time users or the first phase of such a project, with a timescale of 20 months, and an estimated value of €2,152,185,00 (excluding VAT).

However, the EU has disclosed that “no winner was chosen” for the tender and that the competition is closed. The reason why a winner was not chosen was given simply as “Other.”

Three companies bid on the tender, one of which was a joint venture bid by Biometrid along with NOS Comunicações. The latter offers TV interfaces with iris and voice recognition, among its offerings. No doubt the JV bidders will be disappointed by the result although for the general public the concluding reason would be more informative if it wasn’t listed just as “Other.”

Porto-based Biometrid announced it would add iProov face biometrics to its identity orchestration platform in November.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Biometrid  |  digital identity  |  EU  |  government purchasing  |  Portugal  |  tender