Parsons subsidiary wins US Coast Guard biometrics at sea contract

The U.S. Coast Guard awarded a $9.7 million indefinite-delivery contract to Parsons Corporation’s InCadence Strategic Solutions subsidiary to support the service’s next-generation Biometrics at Sea System, known as BASS 2.0.

BASS is the Coast Guard’s mobile identity program used during maritime interdictions, particularly in the service’s Seventh District area of responsibility.

The Coast Guard has locked in a flexible contract with InCadence to keep its at-sea identity program current. The near-term deliverables are tactile, more rugged handhelds, updated software, and support personnel. The strategic deliverable is architectural and ensures the handheld devices feed a DHS back end in flux, without compromising speed, security, or the program’s documented privacy constraints.

Crews collect biometrics at sea and submit them to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) enterprise system for identity checks that inform law-enforcement and immigration decisions.

The award gives the Coast Guard a vehicle to scale devices, harden software, and keep field units supplied as mission tempo demands.

For Parsons, the deal extends momentum for its Javelin line across federal customers. In May, the Air Force signaled a sole-source intent for Javelin+ kits to support AFOSI missions.

DHS’s most recent public privacy documentation says BASS is integrated with DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) and notes an ongoing architectural update to modernize submissions and responses.

The new contract formalizes the long-running alignment between the Coast Guard’s maritime mission and Parsons’ mobile biometrics stack acquired through Xator Corporation and its subsidiary InCadence, both now in Parsons’ portfolio.

Xator bought InCadence in 2020; Parsons then acquired Xator in 2022, absorbing its identity-management hardware, software and integration work.

Program documents and recent notices outline what BASS 2.0 support entails. In May, the Coast Guard issued a notice of intent to sole source to InCadence for roughly 450 additional BASS 2.0 “JavelinXL” handheld kits, along with Ares Gateway and software support, signaling both device fielding and sustainment as central tasks under the award.

While the full task-order roadmap isn’t public, the May notice describes the scale and components the service expects to deploy.

On the operator side, Javelin-family kits are rugged Android-based handhelds designed for multi-modal capture. The JavelinXL variant supports four-finger slap prints, dual-iris capture, and facial imagery, managed by Parsons’ Ares mobile application.

BASS was piloted and then expanded across cutters to identify suspects and deter repeat attempts to enter the United States illegally by sea. BASS operates on 23 cutters in District 7.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Biometrics at Sea  |  Department of Defense  |  InCadence Strategic Solutions  |  Javelin  |  Parsons Corporation  |  U.S. Coast Guard  |  U.S. Government