Request For Information - BIRD (FINAL).pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION - 70RDA124RFI000014

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

OFFICE OF PROCUREMENT OPERATIONS

BIOMETRIC IDENTITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (BIRD)

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation. Nonetheless, submitters should properly mark their responses if the information is confidential or proprietary.

Furthermore, those who respond to this RFI should not anticipate feedback with regards to its submission other than acknowledgment of receipt, should the submitter request an acknowledgement. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. All submissions become the property of the Federal Government and will not be returned. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future solicitation.

The information provided in this RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government.

All submissions become the property of the Government and will not be returned. Responses to the RFI may be used to develop Government documentation.

Responses to this RFI may be reviewed by Government technical experts drawn from Federal employees and Contractor subject matter experts (SMEs) supporting the effort.

INTRODUCTION

As a program within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) supports DHS’s mission to protect our nation by providing biometric and biographic identification services to federal, state, and local government decision makers to help them accurately identify the people they encounter and determine whether those people pose a risk to the United States. OBIM's most visible service is the collection of biometrics—digital fingerprints, facial, and iris —from international travelers at United States visa-issuing posts and ports of entry. Collecting this information helps immigration officers determine whether a person is eligible to receive a visa or enter the United States. The biometric collection process is simple, convenient, and secure.

OBIM’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) manages biometric identity information for over 262 million individuals, making it one of the largest biometric repositories globally. OBIM is collaborating with OCIO to transition from IDENT to the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) system. This upgrade will shift from hardware-based matching to a cloud-based microservice architecture. As OBIM expands its biometric identity management services to incorporate additional modalities and stakeholders, active involvement in standards development organizations—such as the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)—is crucial. This engagement supports OBIM’s long-term goals for a

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and aligns with the IDENT Identity eXchange Messaging (IXM) application profile, which facilitates communication with the OBIM/IDENT system. IXM is an XML-based message exchange format that provides a manageable, standards-based interface for OBIM’s services.

PURPOSE OF RFI

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to collect information from Academia, Scientific, Technical, Engineering, and Industry to support current and future technical and operational biometric outcomes. OBIM is interested in experienced and capable vendors to respond to this RFI.

1. NEXT GENERATION IDENTITY AND DISCOVERY –RESEARCH

a. Provide your biometrics experience related to the listed items.

b. Describe your biometrics capabilities to support the listed items.

c. Listed items:

Biometric research and evaluation, Automated latent fingerprint matching.

Video processing/analytics, Contactless fingerprint, palmprint, and Plantar capture and comparison, Hyperspectral imaging of face and body, DNA—phenotyping, Facial Recognition, 3D biometrics, Iris Recognition, Fingerprint Recognition, Voice and Speaker Recognition, Gait, Keystroke, Biometric Fusion, Identity Formatting and Normalization, Digital Identity technologies, Anomaly Detection, Liveness and Spoofing, Distributed identity management, Photonic/optical digital storage, Quantum computing, Deep (convolutional) neural networks, Re-quantification of data, and Generation hardware and infrastructure-focused solutions to include storage, cloud optimization, network improvement, or other non-software-based technology.

2. NEXT GENERATION IDENTITY –ENGINEERING AND PROTOTYPE

DEVELOPMENT

a. Provide your experience related to the listed items.

b. Describe your capabilities to support the listed items.

c. Listed items:

Developing protype models (physical, electronic, digital, analytical, etc.), Testing in developmental and non-operational environments, Assisting with Project lifecycles, Preparing findings and recommendations, Creating detailed user and technical manuals, logistic documentation, and capabilities document, and Recommending alternative solutions.

3. BIOMETRIC AND IDENTITY MANAGEMENT STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT

AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT

a. Provide your experience related to the listed items.

b. Describe your capabilities to support the listed items.

c. Listed items:

Participating in meetings of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) Technical Committee M1- Biometrics and Artificial Intelligence Standards meetings, Participating in meetings with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Biometrics (SC 37) and AI (SC 42) subcommittees and its Working Groups, Providing recommendations on voting positions and technical and editorial contributions for standards under development, Providing technical advice for the development, update, and/or enhancement of biometric, forensic and identity management standards, and

Reviewing of papers, reports and drafts of standards submitted to the Biometrics and Artificial Intelligence Standards.

4. ANALYTICAL AND SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE SUPPORT

a. Provide your experience related to the listed items.

b. Describe your capabilities to support the listed items.

c. Listed items:

Assisting with biometric operational planning, Assisting with biometric strategic planning, Collaborating with government stakeholders on biometric matters, Designing and facilitating biometric special projects, and Performing a broad range of biometric analysis.

5. HART SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE SUPPORT

a. Provide your experience related to the listed items.

b. Describe your capabilities to support the listed items.

c. Listed items:

Providing support to the HART system, Testing and Evaluating of the HART system, Performing Technical Analysis of the HART system, Performing System Engineering, Architecture, and Integration of the

HART system, and Assisting with Cybersecurity resilience of the HART system.

6. NATIONAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE MODEL (NIEM) BIOMETRICS

DOMAIN SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE SUPPORT

a. Provide your experience related to the listed items.

b. Describe your capabilities to support the listed items.

c. Listed items:

Exchange of information between federal agencies and domains, Extensible Markup Language (XML) and JavaScript Object Notation

(JSON),

IXM and IXM Schema, Standards Development Plan, Domain Charter, Domain Management Plan and Domain Schema Baseline, Operational Support for IXM and IXM Schema, Domain Standards Support, Members List, Data Dictionary, Governance Process Plan and High-Level Version Architecture

(HLVA),

Harmonization and Reconciliation which includes the NIEM Business

Architecture Committee (NBAC), NIEM Technical Architecture Committee (NTAC), and Data Stewardship Tactical Working Group at

DHS,

Collaboration Support, and External Data Standardization.

7. NAICS CODE RECOMMENDATIONS

a. This RFI is being identified under NAICS Code, 561411, Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services.

b. Please feel free to recommend other NAICS that may be applicable to the RFI.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

The information obtained may be utilized in the preparation of a Request for Quote (RFQ) provided DHS finds it in its best interest. Vendors are encouraged to review this RFI and determine if their competency meet the DHS requirements.

Finally, RFI submissions should include a cover letter no longer than two (2) pages in length with the following information:

1. Vendor official name, address and phone number.

2. Point of Contact information, including name, phone number and email address.

3. The vendor’s country of origin.

4. If applicable, one URL for the organization’s official web site.

5. The socio-economic category under which the vendor is currently certified to perform under NAICS code 541611, Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services.

6. If applicable, your company’s GSA Schedule or Multiple Award contract number; and

7. If applicable, any relevant DHS strategic sourcing vehicle(s) your company currently holds a contract under and the associated contract number.

Responses are limited to 10 pages (including cover letter), must be in 12pt Times New Roman font with .75 inch margins and submitted via e-mail only to Contracting Officer Amy Driver at Amy.Driver@hq.dhs.gov, and Contract Specialist Sasha May at Sasha.May@hq.dhs.gov no later than October 18, 2024 at 12:00 PM ET. Questions will be accepted through October 4, 2024 at 12:00 PM ET. The subject line of the email should contain the RFI number 70RDA124RFI000014. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. To aid the Government, please segregate and mark proprietary information. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

(End of Request for Information)

ATTACHMENT 1

M DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS)

STATEMENT OF WORK (SOW)

FOR

Futures Identity Branch Biometric Identity Research and Development (BIRD)

1.0 GENERAL

1.1 BACKGROUND

As a program within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) supports DHS’s mission to protect our nation by providing biometric and biographic identification services to federal, state, and local government decision makers to help them accurately identify the people they encounter and determine whether those people pose a risk to the United States. OBIM's most visible service is the collection of biometrics—digital fingerprints, facial, and iris —from international travelers at United States visa-issuing posts and ports of entry. Collecting this information helps immigration officers determine whether a person is eligible to receive a visa or enter the United States. The biometric collection process is simple, convenient, and secure.

OBIM’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) holds biometric identity information for more than 262 million individuals, one of the largest biometric identity repositories in the world. OBIM is currently working with OCIO to replace IDENT with the Homeland Advanced Recgonition Technology (HART) system. This effort will replace the existing hardwarde based matching to a cloud based micoservice architecture. As OBIM continues to expand its biometric identity management services to include additional biometric modalities and stakeholders, maintaining active participation in standards development organizations such as National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is a key component of the OBIM enterprise targeted long term Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the IDENT Identity eXchange Messaging (IXM) application profile designed for communicating with the OBIM/IDENT system. IXM is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) based message exchange format that provides an easy-to-manage, standards-based interface to the services offered by OBIM.

1.2 SCOPE

OBIM requires biometric subject matter expertise support in the areas of Academia, Scientific, Technical, Engineering, and Industry. The expertise will conduct biometric related research and produce related products; identify, plan, develop, test, evaluate, work to transition the successful technologies into operational environments and systems, and assist with the maintenance.

2.0 REQUIREMENTS

2.1 NEXT GENERATION IDENTITY – RESEARCH

2.1.1 Next Generation Identity and Discovery - Research

OBIM requires performance of research and evaluation tasks that support a wide range of biometric and identity related technologies and capabilities. The Contractor shall conduct research on next generation identity modalities that could focus on, but not be limited to, the following biometric, identity, and forensic technology areas:

o Automated latent fingerprint matching, o Video processing/analytics, o Contactless fingerprint, palmprint, and Plantar capture and compairson, o Hyperspectral imaging of face and body, o DNA—phenotyping o Facial Recognition, o 3D biometrics, o Iris Recognition o Fingerprint Recognition, o Voice and Speaker Recognition, o Gait, o Keystroke, o Biometric Fusion, o Identity Formatting and Normalization, o Digital Identity technologies o Anomaly Detection, o Liveness and Spoofing o Distributed identity management o Photonic/optical digital storage, o Quantum computing, o Deep (convolutional) neural networks, o Re-quantification of data

The Contractor shall conduct research and prepare technical reports summarizing the modality research.

The Contractor shall conduct research on next generation hardware and infrastructure-focused solutions to include storage, cloud optimization, network improvement, or other non-software based technology.

The Contractor shall prepare research reports summarizing the hardware/infrastructure research.

The Contractor shall assist DHS Components in developing and documenting potential use cases for DHS components that could benefit from next generation identity research.

The Contractor shall conduct a comprehensive survey and alternative of analysis of Commerical Off-The-Shelf (COTS) and Government Off-The-Shelf (GOTS) products as part of the next generation identity research. The results of this analysis will be used to inform an analysis of the Return on Investment (ROI) that will drive the Government's buy vs. build decision.

2.2 NEXT GENERATION IDENTITY – ENGINEERING AND PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT

OBIM may determine that a specific next generation identity technology is ready to proceed to the next phase of the project lifecycle for review and evaluation. A prototype is a working model (physical, electronic, digital, analytical, etc.) of a new process and/or product whose effectiveness and efficiency will be verified in a testing environment to validate requirements, define the problem, or search for alternative solutions. The Contractor and OBIM may decide to initiate a prototype effort based on unforeseen stakeholder need.

The Contractor shall develop and deliver working prototypes in non-operational environments provided by OBIM, or another environment mutually agreed upon by the Contractor and OBIM.

The Contractor shall use, when available, OBIM-provided models defining a system, service, and/or sub-component capability for use in prototype development and evaluation. These models represent expected configurations and rules for use.

The Contractor shall prepare reports summarizing the findings derived during the prototype development and should contain a recommendation for further study, for each prototype delivered.

The Contractor shall conduct prototype development according to a best practices engineering management approach. The Contractor engineering management should govern how the technical baselines (e.g., requirement specifications, structure, development, testing, and transition etc.) for the solution shall be documented, traced to other engineering work products (deliverables) and maintained.

The Contractor shall develop, at minimum a detailed user manuals, logistic documentation, 1 page capabilities document and a detailed technical information manual for each prototype.

2.3 BIOMETRIC AND IDENTITY MANAGEMENT STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT AND

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

The Contractor shall provide technical advice for the development, update, and/or enhancement of biometric, forensic and identity management standards.

The Contractor shall participate in the regularly scheduled meetings of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) Technical Committee M1- Biometrics and Artificial Intelligence Standards meetings. The schedule of these meetings and membership requirements can be obtained at http://www.incits.org/.

The Contractor shall review papers, reports and drafts of standards submitted to the Biometrics and Artificial Intelligence Standards Committees to make recommendations to OBIM FI and their impact to OBIM systems. The Contractor shall coordinate with OBIM FI to recommend voting positions and provide technical and editorial contributions for standards under development.

The Contractor shall provide to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/ International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Biometrics (SC 37) and AI (SC42) sub-committees and its Working Groups, management and administration required to effectively complete its standards development and maintenance in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives.

This is accomplished by overseeing thetimely development of meeting agendas and attendance at international meetings to ensure the successful execution of these agendas; establishing target dates for contributions from technical experts and member countries, and establishing target dates for planning, executing, and tracking all action items of the subcommittee work program. The subcommittee work program and standards support information systems that use biometric data as part of screening, identity management and access control systems. These systems include information systems for border control, law enforcement, criminal justice, intelligence, military and homeland security communities.

The Contractor shall provide other standards analyses, development, and support as directed by

OBIM.

2.3.1 Preparation for and Attendance at Standards Meetings

The Contractor, in coordination with OBIM, shall provide technical advice and subject matter expertise to build consensus on standards currently under development.

2.3.2 Develop and Execute the International Meeting Agendas

The Contractor shall distribute all referenced meeting documents to OBIM staff.

The Contractor shall document action items and resolutions.

2.3.3 Preparation and Circulation of Reports

The Contractor shall provide technical advice in coordination with OBIM to collaborate with and prepare and circulate to all member countries all required reports following standards meetings.

The Contractor shall capture key meeting discussions and decisions during the meetings to draft the meeting report and the action items and resolutions.

2.3.4 Standards Analyses and Development

The Contractor shall provide support services to OBIM or other standards bodies as directed.

2.4 ANALYTICAL AND SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE SUPPORT

As the DHS Biometric Service provider, supporting 45+ DHS stakeholders, OBIM must analyze and evaluate a broad range of biometric and identity capabilities related to the match, store, share, and analyze continuum. In some cases, OBIM needs to fully understand aspects of the collection mission to gain a comprehensive understanding of customer capability needs. OBIM requires analytic services to help inform and instruct decision-making in this dynamic identity environment. These analysis services shall help OBIM to explore solutions and efforts to build new capacity biometric and identity capabilities for DHS components and other Federal stakeholders.

The Contractor shall facilitate aspects of the development of the long-term identity strategic plan, and design key strategic engagement initiatives that enhance identity operations. In collaboration with the various teams within OBIM, as well as across the Department and with external stakeholders, the Contractor shall manage and implement the research and development of strategic initiatives.

The Contractor shall manage proper tracking, reporting, and communication of operational plans that stem from exploratory technology and the capabilities derived thereof; facilitate the transition of these projects throughout their lifecycle, from project development to project transition, communicating these efforts to senior management, both internal and external (across government, academia, industry, and international partners, as well as public-private partnerships).

The Contractor shall collaborate with the Office of the Director on key initiatives to design, lead, and implement special projects in support of the Assistant Director and the Futures Identity team.

The Contractor shall facilitate capability development, collaboration, and continuous improvement to better position OBIM as the preferred identity services provider.

The Contractor shall design and facilitate special projects and initiatives across all elements of OBIM, pushing innovation to achieve strategic objectives and drive performance culture, aligning all processes and systems to deliver high-impact results.

2.5 HART SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE SUPPORT

The core focus of OBIM for the near term is reaching initial operating capability of HART. This will require significant support in system engineering and test and evaluation. The Contractor will be requested to provide technical support and subject matter expertise advice on tasks associated with the development and deployment of the first two increments of HART. The following subtasks present the type of support and expertise required from the Contractor to support HART. The Contractor will be asked to assist with test and evaluation and system engineering tasks, but the subtasks currently serve to demonstrate the potential efforts the Contractor will be requested to support.

2.5.1 Test and Evaluation

2.5.1.1 Biometric Accuracy Evaluation Projects

OBIM initiates a variety of internal matching evaluation projects to evaluate the accuracy of biometric matching capabilities. In support of HART – Biometric Accuracy Evaluation Projects, the Contractor shall assess, evaluate, and inform test environment test set design plans and approaches to ensure that overarching biometric performance evaluations follow best practices and generate repeatable results. In addition, the Contractor shall conduct and participate in biometric performance evaluation tasks.

The Contractor shall review evaluation plans to support OBIM systems matcher accuracy testing. OBIM matcher accuracy evaluation plans are created periodically to assess performance of OBIM (and future system) matchers.

These plans include:

a. Selection/curation of test data sets

b. Conditions for testing (environment, timeline, staffing)

c. Evaluation of results

The Contractor shall assess OBIM generated test data sets and other representative data. Such evaluation should require examination of test data by the Contractor staff at the Contractor facilities that conform to security and privacy requirements for OBIM data. Assessment may involve testing with third party or advanced matching products.

2.5.1.2 HART Systems – Performance Test and Evaluation

OBIM currently has deployed galleries and capabilities in HART Production to support fingerprint, face, and iris matching. OBIM requires that test evaluations be conducted to ensure correct face matcher threshold values are generated, evaluated, and available for use in the production system. Subsections below identify specific task definitions that the Contractor may be asked to support in conducting tests and evaluations of matcher accuracy.

The Contractor shall provide guidance on OBIM evaluation methodologies and metrics that should be used in biometric matcher performance evaluations. This will ensure OBIM’s evaluation methodology incorporates all applicable best practices needed to provide statistically valid match accuracy results.

The Contractor shall review HART Performance Test results and modeling and simulation artifacts and provide guidance on accuracy, adequacy, and relevance of performance test results. This will ensure OBIM’s evaluation methodology and modeling/simulation mitigate the risk of the difference in capacities of the Performance Test Environment (PTE) and production environments in the analysis of the performance of the HART solution.

The Contractor shall review HART Test Procedures, Cases, and Regression Test

Suite document and provide guidance on accuracy, adequacy, and relevance of performance test procedures.

The Contractor shall review HART Test Summary & Test Problem Report and provide guidance on accuracy, adequacy, and relevance of performance test summary report.

2.5.2 Systems Engineering

2.5.2.1 HART Development Execution Technical Analysis.

The Contractor shall provide technical advice, support and recommendations during HART Increments 1 and 2 development activities through participation in integrated project teams (IPTs) or other project management approaches (Agile/DevOps) that are executing projects as a result of various HART contract awards. The work for this period of performance will include biometric performance testing, system integration, testing, cyber resilience testing, and parallel operations between IDENT and HART. The Contractor shall review work tasks, contractor plans and progress, software code, solution requirements, system designs, and test plans and results.

The Contractor shall then provide observations, analysis, and technical support to OBIM based on the Contractor’s expertise and analysis of IPT activities. Furthermore, The Contractor may be asked to provide:

System engineering expertise in the areas of software engineering, data architecture, cloud-based services architectures, data services development, information security, privacy, biometric matching technologies, cyber resilience.

Testing to include analysis, review, and technical support to ensure the HART Performance Work Statement objectives are met by HART Initial Operating Capability.

Evaluation of service level agreements (SLAs) and provide analysis of trends, thresholds, and areas for improvements/efficiencies for PTE and parallel operations.

Evaluation and assessment of performance testing, modeling and simulation, engineering artifacts and provide analysis to ascertain whether non-functional requirements have been fulfilled.

Technical analysis of Agile, risk, configuration management, and transition management for the HART. This is necessary to ensure the IDENT and HART systems have operational parity in preparation for the operational retirement of IDENT and transition to HART.

Upon initial operating capability of HART, the Contractor shall continue to provide support to future increments of HART.

o Provide support of unresolved issues for Increment 1 or 2 of HART o Best of breed options for resolving suboptimal performance conditions, such as automatically identifying ghost images and finger rotations, or Improved fusion workflows.

o Provide support for future releases of HART Integration methodologies for new modalities with varying template requirements.

2.5.2.2 Systems Engineering, Architecture, and Integration

Performance Improvement Methodologies. As OBIM moves to deploy the HART system and retire the IDENT system, the Contractor’s technical expertise shall be required to analyze the long-term strategy to ensure OBIM continues to best meets its mission. In addition, biometric technology standards, privacy, and policy are evolving with the increased use of biometrics in the Federal domain. The technical implementation of biometric standards, privacy, and policy can be challenging for IDENT and HART systems; the Contractor shall provide analysis and technical support to ensure technical designs and outcomes address requirements.

The Contractor may be asked to provide technical engineering analysis and support of identity service monitoring data to include security, interfaces (such as application program interfaces), network, microservice designs and performance that support or enable identity service execution, cloud service capabilities and configurations, and business rule configurations related to biometric modalities, accuracy, thresholds, fusion, and match results during HART biometric performance testing and customer migration. Because OBIM interacts with DHS and other Federal working groups on the improvement of systems engineering and architecture improvement and enhancement efforts, the Contractor may be called upon to join and participate in such groups to ensure such improvements are fully realized.

2.6 NATIONAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE MODEL (NIEM) BIOMETRICS DOMAIN

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE SUPPORT

NIEM provides a common vocabulary for consistent, repeatable exchange of information between agencies and domains. NIEM uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) which provides a common framework for information exchange, allowing the structure and meaning of data to be defined through simple but carefully defined syntax rules. A NIEM domain is an organization or body that works with the NIEM governance bodies to manage data component definitions for a Community of Interest (COI) or agency. Each NIEM domain has its own rules, processes, schedule, and priorities for development of the XML schema for its domain.

The NIEM Biometric Domain enables OBIM’s leadership role in defining the governance, rules, terminology, and content for the Biometrics Domain. The NIEM Biometric Domain will provide the data standards, architecture, and data exchange packages necessary for interoperable exchange of data with OBIM, FBI, DoD, NATO, INTERPOL and other systems systems in a common service-oriented architecture. It will enable OBIM to integrate its data assets using multiple communication techniques and protocols by providing data converters, data extensions, data adapters, data exchanges and data exchange packages necessary for interoperability.

2.6.1 Standards Development Plan

The Contractor shall modify (as required) and execute the Standards Development Plan that contains detailed information pertaining to the structure and future architecture. The plan addresses how the contractor will ensure that the development of the content for the Domain has minimum disruption on OBIM architecture plans.

2.6.2 Domain Charter

The Contractor shall develop and provide the Domain charter as needed for organizations where OBIM represent the Biometrics Domain, and how the organization will submit biometric exchanges for review as explained in NBD Governance Process Plan, dated February 17, 2021.

2.6.3 Domain Management Plan and Domain Schema Baseline

The Contractor shall modify (as required) and execute the Domain Management Plan that describes the contractor’s approach to support the day-to-day management and operations of the Biometric Domain. Furthermore, the contractor shall provide a Biometric Domain Schema Baseline to schedule and coordinate support necessary to provide data standards services for Domain management and a baseline of the biometrics domain. The contractor shall provide a draft Biometric Domain Schema Baseline within 60 months after award to the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) and Technical Manager (TM) for review and comment. The contractor shall provide a final Biometric Domain Schema Baseline to the COR and TM no later than ten (10) business days after receipt of the Government’s comments.

2.6.4 Operational Support

The Contractor shall provide operational support for the OBIM’s Biometric Domain.

Operational support includes supporting input actions into NIEM.gov, and the support required to facilitate the successful implementation of the standards as related to IXM and the IXM schema to ensure OBIM systems and applications are prepared to respond to data messaging or data interoperability standards developed for the Domain. This support includes conformance for data standards as related to IXM and recommendations for changes to IXM services and data structures to support OBIM interoperability and data sharing with DHS Components.

2.6.5 Domain Standards Support

The Contractor shall provide support to OBIM for managing this Domain and other related data standardization activities. This support includes but not limited to supporting the OBIM standards section in reviewing architecture plans for accuracy, consistency, and functional integration of established data standards. To meet this requirement, the Contractor shall prepare and deliver an Enterprise-level Data Standards Execution Plan.

2.6.6 Member List

The Contractor shall provide a contact list of all members and organizations represented by the established Biometric Domain COI that will serve as the governing body for the Domain.

This shall include indication of a primary point-of-contact who will interface regularly with NIEM Program Management Office (PMO).

2.6.7 Data Dictionary

The Contractor shall create a common data dictionary of elements to be included in the Biometric Domain that spans the Federal/State/Local/Tribal/Private/International boundaries represented by the COI and for inclusion into HART Data Dictionary and other HART related artifacts. These organizations can inform, participate, and collaborate to help shape, develop, and refine data standards programs.

2.6.8 Governance Process Plan

The Contractor shall modify (as required) and execute the existing governance processes (dated February 17, 2021) related to release management and publication, including a planned schedule, a unified strategy for Domain development and maintenance as well an establishment of roles and responsibilities of the COI members as defined in the NIEM High Level Version Architecture (HLVA).

2.6.9 Harmonization and Reconciliation

The Contractor shall participate in standards related harmonization and reconciliation activities as much as possible such as, but not limited to, NIEM Business Architecture Committee (NBAC), DSTWG reoccurring meetings, and NIEM Technical Architecture Committee (NTAC).

2.6.10 Collaboration Support

The Contractor shall also produce a “how to” guide for creating biometric standards exchanges and a quarterly NIEM Biometric Domain newsletter on notable changes and work being accomplished on the domain. The Contractor shall provide Biometric Domain pamphlets for distribution at meetings and conferences. The guide, newsletter, and other communications items will be developed by the Contractor to enhance and improve acceptance and adoption of biometric standards across the DHS and Federal enterprise.

2.6.11 External Data Standardization

The Contractor shall provide recommendations to the Domain for incorporation of related external data standardization initiatives as appropriate.

2.7 TRANSITION (IN & OUT)

Transition-In: The Contractor shall be responsible for participating in and coordinating the transition of all technical activities identified in this SOW from the incumbent Contractor to itself.

The Contractor shall develop a Draft Transition-In Plan (to be submitted with the proposal) that includes milestones, which will indicate when properly trained, qualified personnel will accomplish full assumption of all functional areas identified in the contract. The Contractor shall demonstrate the ability to quickly staff the requirement to meet the transition schedules dictated by the expiring task order. The Contractor shall provide a Final Transition-In Plan 30 calendar days after award. After the initial transition period, the Contractor shall not bill against this CLIN as determined by the government.

Transition-Out: A Draft Transition-Out Plan shall be submitted 60 calendar days before the contract expires. The Contractor shall provide a Final Transition-Out Plan as required, but in no case greater than 30 calendar days before the contract end date, for an orderly transition to its successor (s) to ensure that the level and quality of services are maintained. The Contractor shall ensure a structured handoff process to the Government and to a successor Contractor at the Government’s discretion. The Contractor shall execute the transition process including the return of any data and equipment, identification of relative documentation, training, general turnover of responsibilities, and cessation of current activities required to completely close out NIEM support and related activity. After the initial transition period, the contractor shall not bill against this CLIN as determined by the government.