---
title: "Strategic Facial Matching API and associated Services"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-0472dd"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-0472dd"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-0472dd.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-0472dd.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Planning"
buyer: "HOME OFFICE"
published: "2024-06-27"
---

# Strategic Facial Matching API and associated Services

Buyer: HOME OFFICE  
Current stage: Planning  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-0472dd

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## Summary

The Home Office in the United Kingdom, located at 49 Sydenham Road, Croydon, is planning a procurement process for the "Strategic Facial Matching API and associated Services." This project falls under the IT services category and aims to create a new national facial matching service for law enforcement purposes. There will be a short technical integration workshop held online on 17th July 2024, inviting both previous market engagement participants and potential new suppliers to understand the updated interface.

This tender by the Home Office presents an opportunity for businesses in the IT services sector, specifically those offering consulting, software development, and Internet support. Companies interested in enhancing law enforcement technologies can compete for this contract. The procurement stage is currently at the planning phase, with key dates including the technical workshop on 17th July 2024. Businesses with expertise in facial recognition technology and data migration would find this tender well-suited for their growth strategies.

## Notice

Strategic Facial Matching (SFM) Project delivering infrastructure, software services and data migration to create a new national facial matching service to be used for law enforcement purposes.

### Lot Information

Lot 1

Home Office Biometrics (HOB) operates a Biometrics Services Gateway (BSG). Designed, built and managed in-house, with cloud hosting, the BSG provides a non-proprietary, adaptable and scalable internal interconnect between HOB systems, including but not limited to those which provide biometric storage and search. Through a series of externally exposed APIs, the BSG also provides connectivity to other systems and thereby to users of biometrics services in the Home Office (e.g. HM Passports, Migration & Borders), to operational partners and agencies outside of the Home Office (e.g. local police forces) and to foreign government partners for international biometric exchange (e.g. 27 Prum Member States). The Strategic Facial Matching (SFM) Project is delivering infrastructure, software services and data migration to create a new national facial matching service to be used for law enforcement purposes, commencing with a foundational Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for Retrospective Facial Recognition (RFR) in Spring 2024. Some of the subsequent developments will be enabled by means of either a new BSG API or adaptations to an existing BSG API. Since 2018 the mobile fingerprint check service known as HOB Strategic Mobile or Rapid Search has been made available as a BSG API. This service is currently consumed by 35 local police forces and Immigration Enforcement, each of which has either built or bought mobile platforms and apps which are integrated with the BSG API. Mobile biometric services could be extended into the modality of face, exploiting the ubiquitous imaging capability now omnipresent in smartphones, together with apps and infrastructure which is already integrated with the BSG. This use case of facial search is referred to by policing as Operator Initiated Facial Recognition (OIFR) and is currently amongst the prioritised requirements of policing to maximise the benefits of facial recognition technology. Following previous HOB market engagement activity on Strategic Facial Matching, it is our intention to deliver a short technical integration workshop. The workshop will provide an update on HOB's delivery of the interface and will provide a forum to walk through the updated interface documentation. This workshop will be aimed at policing suppliers and/or in-house IT departments that wish to understand this updated interface and will provide visibility of the interface changes and will enable the market to understand any necessary development and testing that may be required to support this interface in the future. The workshop will be held online on 17th July 2024 10:00 - 12:00. Invites will automatically be sent to previous market engagement participants, but we are opening the meeting to suppliers who may have missed the previous session. If you are interested in attending the session, please e-mail strategicfacialmatchingproject@homeoffice.gov.uk by no later than Friday 12 July 2024. Please note that suppliers will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to participate in the session.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/019598-2024 |
| Notice type | Planning Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Not Specified |
| Procurement method details | Not specified |
| Tender suitability | Not specified |
| Awardee scale | Not specified |
| All stages | Planning |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 27 Jun 2024 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | 26 Jun 2024 |
| Award date | Not specified |
| Contract period | Not specified |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | Not specified |
| Contracts value | Not specified |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Planned |
| Lots status | Planned |
| Awards status | Not specified |
| Contracts status | Not specified |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | HOME OFFICE |
| Locality | CROYDON |
| Post town | Croydon |
| Postcode | CR0 2EU |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI6 Outer London - South |
| ITL 3 | TLI62 Croydon |
| Local authority | Croydon |
| Electoral ward | Fairfield |
| Westminster constituency | Croydon West |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 72 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

### Codes

- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

## Release History

- 27 Jun 2024 at 07:03 - Planning - Planning Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/019598-2024

## Notice URLs

- http://www.gov.uk

## Provenance

This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-0472dd. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-0472dd.json.