FBI, Leidos Expand Collaboration to Upgrade Biometric System

Published Date : 7/29/2025 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has awarded Leidos a $128 million task order to modernize the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, the world's most comprehensive biometric database. This move underscores the growing convergence of biometric surveillance and national security infrastructure. 

In a move that reflects the accelerating convergence of biometric surveillance and national security infrastructure, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has awarded Leidos a $128 million task order to modernize its sprawling biometric and criminal history database known as the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system.

The contract, announced Tuesday, marks the latest evolution in a decades-long effort by the FBI to centralize and enhance the way federal, state, local, and international partners identify individuals suspected of criminal activity or are flagged for national security reasons using rapidly advancing biometric technology.

Leidos has long partnered with the FBI to deliver mission-critical biometric systems, including NGI, the largest, most efficient electronic repository of biometric and criminal history data, according to Roy Stevens, Leidos National Security Sector president. Leidos' work with the FBI to improve the system’s accuracy facilitates many more criminal identifications, helping to keep America safe.

NGI is not just a fingerprint repository. It is arguably the most expansive biometric identity system in the world, encompassing multimodal data inputs including facial recognition, palm prints, iris scans, voice data, scars and tattoos, and, increasingly, behavioral biometrics. Since its initial rollout in 2011, NGI has served as the core operational system within the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia. It processes millions of biometric transactions daily and supports hundreds of thousands of users across law enforcement, immigration, counterterrorism, and border security.

The new task order granted to Leidos includes a one-year base period with four additional option years. It mandates a comprehensive overhaul of NGI’s digital architecture and operational capabilities. This modernization initiative includes the integration of new biometric matching algorithms, machine learning–driven analytics, mobile and cloud-based application support, and the reengineering of core software and hardware infrastructure to boost agility, speed, and interoperability. Leidos is expected to apply an agile development model to phase in enhancements while ensuring uninterrupted mission-critical operations.

For Leidos, a defense and intelligence contractor with deep roots in biometric systems, the NGI contract solidifies its status as a key private-sector steward of U.S. biometric and identity infrastructure. The company previously supported FBI programs focused on boosting fingerprint matching accuracy and refining automation in biometric queries. Those earlier partnerships helped raise NGI’s fingerprint identification accuracy rate above 99.6 percent, a benchmark that underscored both the scale and sensitivity of the system.

In May, the FBI awarded Leidos a five-and-a-half year $130 million contract to support the CJIS’s Fingerprint Analysis Support Team Biometric Services program. This contract marked a significant development in the FBI’s efforts to modernize and enhance its biometric identification capabilities and further solidified Leidos’ position as a critical partner in advancing federal law enforcement technology infrastructure.

The NGI system traces its lineage back to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) that was launched in 1999. It was the FBI’s then-cutting-edge repository for fingerprint and criminal history records. However, as biometric technologies advanced in the early 2000s, and as post-9/11 priorities reshaped the landscape of federal security operations, the need for a more dynamic and comprehensive system became evident. NGI was conceived as a modular, extensible platform capable of handling a vastly greater volume and diversity of biometric modalities.

By the time NGI reached full operational capability in 2014, it had absorbed IAFIS and added a constellation of new services, including the Interstate Photo System which supports facial recognition searches across a growing database of mugshots and government images. The Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC) was also developed as part of NGI, and provides near-instantaneous searches of high-priority individuals such as suspected terrorists, known sex offenders, and violent criminals. RISC allows law enforcement officers on the street to use a mobile device to perform a “lights-out” rapid search, and within seconds receive a response to quickly assess the threat level of any subject encountered during their normal law enforcement activities.

The scope of NGI is staggering. As of 2025, the system houses more than 160 million criminal and civil fingerprint records, over 50 million facial images, and tens of millions of palm prints and iris scans. It performs over 70,000 fingerprint transactions each day, including those submitted by state and local law enforcement agencies, federal partners like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and international affiliates through INTERPOL and other channels.

The scale of NGI has also drawn increasing scrutiny. Civil liberties organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have long warned that NGI’s facial recognition capabilities – as well as the use of images pulled from non-criminal contexts – risks undermining privacy rights and due process protections. In 2016 and 2017, Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits found the FBI had failed to fully assess the accuracy and potential biases of NGI’s facial recognition algorithms and had not properly audited the system’s use.

The ACLU and EFF argue that this oversight is especially dangerous given well-documented evidence that facial recognition systems perform less accurately on people of color, women, and younger individuals, increasing the risk of false matches and wrongful arrests. The ACLU has warned that the FBI’s own vendors may not fully understand or disclose the biases in their systems, and yet NGI continues to be used in criminal investigations and immigration enforcement without sufficient safeguards.

One of the most persistent criticisms from both groups is that the FBI has failed to adequately disclose the scope and use of NGI, particularly its facial recognition components. In response to the problematic GAO audits, CJIS pledged to improve transparency and establish better oversight protocols, but independent monitoring remains limited.

The new Leidos contract is unlikely to quiet concerns about NGI’s expansion. Among the stated goals of the modernization effort is to enable more seamless mobile biometric capture, including from smartphones and connected field devices. This will effectively allow law enforcement agents to scan and submit biometric identifiers like fingerprints, facial images, or irises from nearly any location with near real-time returns from the NGI database. While this has clear benefits for fugitive tracking and rapid identification, critics argue it risks fueling over-policing, racial bias, and erosion of Fourth Amendment protections, especially if deployed during routine stops or without proper consent protocols.

Another anticipated outcome of the Leidos modernization push is the closer integration of NGI with other national biometric databases. These include DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), which is currently undergoing a problematic upgrade into the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) system. Though NGI and IDENT were originally designed to serve different operational domains, there has been increasing interoperability between the two, especially under joint threat assessments and investigative frameworks post-2016. Leidos’ role in both environments signals a growing convergence of criminal justice and immigration surveillance tools into a broader biometric governance architecture.

In parallel, Leidos continues its work under a separate $130 million contract that was awarded in May to support CJIS’s Fingerprint Analysis Support Team Biometric Services Program. This project provides the personnel and IT services needed to conduct continuous 24/7 fingerprint processing, workflow enhancements, and forensic identity services that underpin many of the FBI’s case support functions. With Leidos now embedded across multiple tiers of CJIS’s biometric operations, its influence over the technological backbone of federal identification and tracking is unmatched in the private sector. What’s emerging is a national infrastructure where biometric identification is both continuous and increasingly automated.

The FBI asserts that NGI’s modernization will help reduce human review in many areas, allowing algorithms and AI systems to handle first-pass matching, triage alerts, and confidence scoring. While this is likely to accelerate investigative workflows, it also raises concerns about false positives, lack of algorithmic transparency, and the cumulative risks of reliance on opaque systems.

To that end, some in Congress and the civil liberties community are calling for a comprehensive audit of the NGI modernization initiative, including a new privacy impact assessment and clearer disclosure of how biometric data, especially facial recognition and iris scans, are collected, retained, shared, and used across domains. As of now, NGI operates under a series of System of Records Notices (SORNs) issued under the Privacy Act, but critics say these notices have not always kept pace with the technical capabilities of the system.

EFF has repeatedly criticized the FBI for its failure to conduct timely Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) and issue updated SORNs as required under the Privacy Act. The FBI only published a PIA in 2022 for NGI’s Interstate Photo System after receiving pressure from privacy advocates and members of Congress. But even then, critics argue that the disclosures were incomplete, vague, or outdated, preventing the public from meaningfully understanding how NGI operates or how their data might be used. This lack of clear public documentation, EFF has said, represents a fundamental erosion of transparency norms that are supposed to apply to powerful surveillance tools.

There are also geopolitical implications. As biometric data-sharing grows between U.S. federal agencies and foreign partners, especially through information-sharing agreements with Five Eyes allies and NATO, NGI increasingly plays a role in transnational law enforcement and intelligence operations. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS): 

Q: What is the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system?

A: The Next Generation Identification (NGI) system is the FBI’s most comprehensive biometric database, which includes multimodal data inputs such as fingerprints, facial recognition, palm prints, iris scans, and voice data. It processes millions of biometric transactions daily and supports various law enforcement and security operations.

Q: Who is Leidos and what is their role in the NGI system?

A: Leidos is a defense and intelligence contractor that has been awarded a $128 million task order to modernize the FBI’s NGI system. They have a long history of partnering with the FBI to enhance biometric systems, including NGI, and are responsible for integrating new technologies and improving operational capabilities.

Q: What are the main concerns raised by civil liberties organizations about the NGI system?

A: Civil liberties organizations like the EFF and ACLU have raised concerns about the NGI system's facial recognition capabilities, potential biases in algorithms, lack of transparency, and the risk of false matches and wrongful arrests, particularly for marginalized communities.

Q: How does the NGI system support law enforcement and national security?

A: The NGI system supports law enforcement and national security by providing rapid and accurate biometric identification, enabling law enforcement officers to quickly assess the threat level of individuals during routine stops, and facilitating transnational law enforcement and intelligence operations.

Q: What are the goals of the NGI modernization initiative?

A: The NGI modernization initiative aims to integrate new biometric matching algorithms, machine learning-driven analytics, mobile and cloud-based application support, and reengineer core software and hardware infrastructure to boost agility, speed, and interoperability. 

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