Mastek win £49M deal to support UK Home Office Biometrics delivery

Digital engineering and cloud transformation firm Mastek has won a contract to engineer, integrate and develop the UK Home Office Biometrics Application Development & Environment Service (HADES).

The contract is worth up to 49 million pounds (approximately US$66 million) over 5 years, including two option years. It covers enhancement, maintenance and support of the Home Office Biometrics Services Gateway (BSG) and National DNA Database (NDNAD). These systems are used in passport and visa applications, study and asylum claims and law enforcement scenarios as a delivery tool of the Home Office Biometrics Programme.

The HADES system is therefore intended to serve different user groups, handling different datasets, biometric modalities and stakeholder requirements, according to the company announcement.

Mastek previously won a £26.7 million ($35.8 million) contract to support the development of Home Office’s biometrics application in 2020, which ran from 2021 to 2024. Mastek’s contractual relationship with Home Office Biometrics goes back further, however, including with a strategic application development deal in 2018. The company also recently expanded its office in Leeds, England.

“This milestone deepens our partnership with the Home Office and reflects sustained confidence in Mastek’s deep domain knowledge in biometrics integration systems, DNA search and match technologies and advanced engineering capabilities,” says Mastek President UKI and Europe Abhishek Singhh. “We look forward to operating secure, compliant, and resilient services for the Home Office 24*7 at a national scale, enabling collaboration across departments, with Europe and internationally. We thank the Home Office for creating an excellent environment for supplier collaboration and delivery with our teams, who anchor Mastek’s role as a trusted partner to the UK Public Sector.”

Trusted partner and plaintiff

The partnership between Mastek and Home Office may be deepening, but it is also one that includes active litigation. Mastek sued Home Office in December alleging that it was “denied a significant opportunity” when it was not advanced past the second round of procurement consideration for immigration digitalization system Atlas. Mastek was the incumbent provider for the system since 2022, but says it was eliminated from contention for a £138 million ($182 million) contract to supply the IT system for processing asylum applications in a process it says had “manifest errors in the scoring,” as reported by Law360.

Mastek sued for more than £48 million ($64 million), but Home Office says the company’s case rests on information it alleges other bidders had access to, but which Mastek has not specified.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  cloud services  |  government purchasing  |  Home Office Biometrics (HOB)  |  Mastek  |  National DNA Database (NDNAD)  |  procurement