DHS Opens Bidding on $440.7 Million Governmentwide Contract for Fingerprint, Face, Iris and Palm Capture Devices

On Thursday, September 10, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security released a solicitation for a potential five-year, $440.7 million Biometric Capture Device governmentwide acquisition vehicle, covering five product tracks — fingerprint, facial, iris, palmprint and multimodal devices. FedScoop reports DHS intends to award a minimum of three IDIQ contracts per track; proposals were due September 18. Washington Technology reports DHS is standing the vehicle up “as mandatory for use by its components,” and that other agencies, such as the State and Justice departments, will be able to order through it. DHS justified the consolidation by citing “fragmented purchasing, inconsistent standards and limited economies of scale” under the prior approach.

This is the hardware layer of a buildout canon has tracked mostly at the software and data layer. ICE’s largest Clearview AI contract came alongside DHS deleting an oversight policy (2026-06-20–ice-largest-clearview-ai-contract-dhs-deletes-oversight-policy); ICE contracted for bulk facial recognition through LexisNexis and Palantir (2026-08-10–ice-lexisnexis-palantir-bulk-facial-recognition-contract); agents carry face-matching phones in the field (2026-07-15–ice-agents-carry-facial-recognition-smartphones); and CBP moved toward facial capture of all travelers (2026-07-08–clearview-fedramp-cbp-facial-recognition-all-travelers). A mandatory, standardized capture-device vehicle makes every DHS component’s sensors interoperable with those matching systems and opens the same supply line to other departments.

Standardization is arriving ahead of any use rule. There is no comprehensive federal statute governing how facial or other biometric data captured by federal agencies may be used or retained. A single procurement vehicle fixes the vendor base and technical standards for years; the rules on use, if any, will be written against infrastructure already in place.

Open: the solicitation number and the vendors awarded on each track; which DHS component places the first task orders and for what stated use.