RFI - AUTOMATED BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICAITON SYSTEMS (ABIS) AND FIELD IDENTIFICATION DEVICE SOLUTIONS (MOBILEID)

County of San Diego - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) 13363
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION:
Issued September 16, 2026
SAN DIEGO COUNTY
AUTOMATED BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (ABIS) and
FIELD IDENTIFICATION DEVICE SOLUTION (MobileID)
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County of San Diego - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) 13363
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION / OBJECTIVE / PURPOSE ......................................................................... 1
A. Agency Liability and Confidential Information ................................................................. 1
B. California Public Records Act (CPRA) Compliance......................................................... 1
2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION / HISTORY ......................................................................... 1
3. SCHEDULE OF EVENTS AND TIMELINE ............................................................................. 2
4. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................ 2
5. RESPONDENT PROFILE and SIGNATURE BLOCK ............................................................. 4
Appendix A: ABIS Solution ......................................................................................................... 5
A. Corporate Background and Law Enforcement References ............................................. 5
B. Advanced Modalities and Technology Roadmap ............................................................ 5
C. Core Architecture, Cloud, and Infrastructure ................................................................... 6
D. Security, Encryption, and CJIS Policy ............................................................................. 7
E. Interoperability, Open Standards, and NIEM Compliance ............................................... 7
F. Algorithmic Performance and Multi-Modal Matching ....................................................... 8
G. Forensic Latent and Quality Control Interfaces ............................................................... 8
H. Multi-Vendor Support, Cybersecurity, and Governance .................................................. 8
I. Professional Services: Implementation, Conversion, and Maintenance .......................... 9
Appendix B: MobileID Solution ..................................................................................................10
A. Corporate Background and Law Enforcement References ............................................10
B. Security, Encryption, and CJIS Policy ............................................................................10
C. MobileID Fleet Operations and Field Durability ..............................................................10
D. Professional Services: Implementation and Maintenance ..............................................11
J. Multi-Vendor Support, Cybersecurity, and Governance .................................................11
Appendix C: Technical Glossary and Standards .......................................................................12
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County of San Diego - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) 13363
SAN DIEGO COUNTY
AUTOMATED BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (ABIS) and
FIELD IDENTIFICATION DEVICE SOLUTION
1. INTRODUCTION / OBJECTIVE / PURPOSE
San Diego County (County) is publishing this Request for Information (RFI) on behalf of the San
Diego County Regional Cal-ID. The purpose is to seek current market data related to the latest
Automated Biometric Identification Systems (ABIS) and Mobile Fingerprint Capture (MobileID)
Solutions.
Information gathered from this RFI will assist the Remote Access Network (RAN) Board and
regional stakeholders in engineering functional and architectural baselines before launching a
formal Request for Proposal (RFP). Vendors should respond to all parts of the RFI that apply to
their offering (see Appendices A and B). For example, vendors should respond to Appendices A
and B as they apply: i.e. provide information on ABIS only, on MobileID only, or on both ABIS
and MobileID.
A. Agency Liability and Confidential Information
This RFI is exclusively a request for information and no contractual obligation on behalf of the
County whatsoever shall arise from the RFI process. The RFI does not constitute a Request for
Proposal (RFP), Request for Offer (RFO), Invitation for Bid (IFB), or other procurement
solicitation, nor does it constitute a commitment to issue any solicitation in the future.
B. California Public Records Act (CPRA) Compliance
Pursuant to the California Public Records Act (CPRA) (California Government Code 7920.000
et seq.), materials contained in vendor responses are subject to public inspection and
disclosure. If a Respondent asserts that any material in its response is confidential or
proprietary information, the Respondent must clearly mark the applicable pages of the
submission in boldface type to indicate each claim of confidentiality and include the word
"CONFIDENTIAL" at the top of the page.
2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION / HISTORY
The San Diego County CAL-ID currently supports a regional biometric ecosystem that
processes criminal bookings, applicant clearances, and high-volume forensic latent print
workflows. The central infrastructure interfaces directly with the local Records Management
Systems (RMS) and the Jail Information Management System (JIMS), passing identity
transactions downstream to the California Identification System (Cal-ID), California Department
of Justice (Cal DOJ), and the FBI Next Generation Identification (NGI) database.
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The current environment utilizes a central ABIS for matching infrastructure (Thales CABIS 6),
MobileID devices and middleware (Thales), local Livescans (Idemia), and mugshot components
(DataWorks Plus).
The scope for this project includes modernization for the following components:
Core Biometric Systems: The backend architecture, NIST archival storage, and
matching engines.
Custodial Operations: System for biometric verification at intake and release verification
at detention facilities.
Field Operations: MobileID technologies for patrol officers and field investigations and
specialized solutions for the Medical Examiner's Office.
Interoperability Infrastructure: Middleware and interfaces enabling data exchange
between the County's Integrated Justice System (e.g., JIMS), California DOJ (CAL-
DOJ), and Homeland Security(Hart/Ident) and the FBI (NGI).
3. SCHEDULE OF EVENTS AND TIMELINE
Milestone Event Timeline / Contact Information Target
RFI Release Date September 16, 2026
Deadline for Vendor Close of Business: September 30, 2026 - 5:00 P.M. PST
Questions/Clarifications
SDSO Response to Close of Business: October 9, 2026 - 5:00 P.M. PST
Questions/Clarifications
Deadline for Electronic Submission of October 16, 2026 - 5:00 P.M. PST
RFI
Point of Contact Jack Leedham, Procurement Contracting Specialist
(jackt.leedham@sdcounty.ca.gov)
Submission Via electronic upload to Buynet before the Date and Time listed
in Schedule. (https://sdbuynet.sandiegocounty.gov)
4. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
The replacement solution(s) described in your offering(s) must natively accommodate the
baseline capabilities and core technical features outlined below:
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Standards Compliance: Complete alignment with FBI Criminal Justice Information
System (CJIS) Security Policies, Electronic Biometric Transmission Specifications
(EBTS), and ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011/2015 image and data elements.
System Availability: Uninterrupted continuous availability (24x7x365) across booking
locations, backed by an active-passive or active-active secondary disaster recovery
environment.
Authentication and Access: Granular access controls, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA),
and secure administrative profiles mapped to distinct public safety roles.
Indelible Auditing: Cryptographically secure, unalterable transaction and user logging to
defend the forensic chain of custody for all biometric inquiries and modifications.
Automated Monitoring: Self-healing and continuous background health checks that
actively alert agency and cleared vendor IT administrators regarding processing queue
latencies and system errors.
All responses must also take the following into account:
Capability Component Legacy System Profile Target ABIS & MobileID Requirement
Core Architecture Local On-Premise (Monolithic) Secure CJIS-Compliant Cloud/Cloud-
Hybrid Infrastructure
Biometric Modalities Tenprint, Palmprint, Latent, Tenprint, Palmprint, Latent, 2-Finger,
and 2-Finger Matching Mugshot, and Iris with matching and facial
recognition
MobileID IOS/Android bluetooth FBI-PIV and CJIS compliant, centrally
phone/tablet connected for managed queues, enterprise MDM
searching. agnostic, at a minimum finger and face
supported.
Workflow Management Fixed workflows Drag-and-drop orchestration engine for
custom routing rules
Search Parameters Scalable without redesign Scalable without redesign
Disaster Recovery Site Manual cut-over Open to vendor solutions
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5. RESPONDENT PROFILE and SIGNATURE BLOCK
Respondent Profile Component Vendor Document Entry Details
Company Legal Name:
Corporate Street Address:
City / State / Zip Code:
RFI Point of Contact Name:
Official Title:
Direct Contact Phone:
Direct Contact Email:
Company Web Address:
Signature of Authorized Representative: ___________________________________________
Printed Name of Authorized Representative: ________________________________________
Execution Date: _____________________
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Appendix A: ABIS Solution
Respond to all the following questions.
A. Corporate Background and Law Enforcement References
1) Provide proof of a legally registered corporation with at least three (3) similar contracts
that represent active, fully operational large-scale law enforcement deployments serving
populations exceeding 1,000,000 residents.
2) Provide contact information for reference law enforcement agencies.
3) Describe your company's direct experience migrating multi-million record legacy
biometric databases into upgraded topologies without data loss or booking operational
downtime.
4) What is the differentiator for your company's biometric solution from other comparable
solutions currently on the public safety market?
5) Do you plan to subcontract or partner with third parties for core application elements,
algorithms, or mobile devices and/or software?
6) If third-party software components are required to exploit the full utility of the solution,
explain how your corporate entity manages third-party software releases, bug fixes,
updates, and long-term issue resolution.
7) Describe your system's lifecycle timeline, upgrade, and EOL/EOS policies.
B. Advanced Modalities and Technology Roadmap
1) Describe your solution's mature capabilities, budgetary modular add-on costs, and
performance expectations for:
a) Contactless mobile fingerprinting via smart phone camera lenses, including minimum
requirements and any specific brand and model requirements.
b) Iris capture, 1:N searching, and secure storage.
c) Facial recognition processing still photos and video feeds against criminal
repositories and watch lists.
d) Latent Enhancement Tools including but not limited to Major Case Prints,
Dataset/elimination prints, ACE-V integration.
2) Provide a detailed narrative regarding the incorporation, architecture, and governance of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) within your proposed biometric
platform.
a) Describe procedures used to preserve integrity of evidence in court and ensure
transparency in casework.
b) Describe how AI/ML models are fundamentally integrated into your core matching
engine and workflow subsystems. Specify whether these algorithms are developed
natively in-house or rely on third-party frameworks.
c) Detail the continuous training pipelines for your AI models. How frequently are new
machine learning, neural network layers, etc. deployed to the system, and how does
your company ensure that software patches do not introduce regression bugs or
latency issues into live production matching queues?
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d) Detail the specific AI-driven tools available within the forensic user interface (UI) to
assist latent examiners in processing, enhancing, and resolving complex, low-quality,
or distorted friction ridge impressions.
e) How do these AI enhancement tools interface with standard forensic verification
methodologies (e.g., ACE-V documentation logs), and do they allow examiners to
audit, adjust, or completely override automated algorithmic features?
f) Explain how your platform ensures that AI-enhanced latent images and matching
scores remain legally defensible under current standards for scientific evidence (e.g.,
Daubert or Kelly/Frye standards).
g) Specify how your system prevents data contamination or distortion during image
optimization, guaranteeing that the original biometric record remains entirely
unaltered for courtroom exhibits.
h) Describe how your AI models prevent implicit demographic bias (e.g., racial, gender,
or age-based variations in matching accuracy) across facial recognition and multi-
modal matching engine pipelines.
i) Does your solution generate comprehensive, discoverable mathematical audit trails
or "explainable AI" logs that can be utilized in a court of law to defend how an
algorithm derived a specific candidate list or similarity score?
j) Specify if your models are trained on publicly scraped data or strictly on legally
consented, certified public safety data repositories.
k) Describe how your solution leverages AI to automate background system
administration, load balancing, and business process orchestration.
l) Detail how AI is used to monitor system transaction queues dynamically, manages
self-healing, optimizes search indexing, and proactively alert administrators
regarding device health drops or anomalies across the solution.
m) Explain how AI helps automate database maintenance, such as identifying potential
duplicate identities, flag filtering poor livescan captures (NFIQ 2.0 alternatives), or
running automated compliance purges based on policy or statute-of-limitations rules.
n) Describe your platform's capabilities regarding automated minutiae extraction, quality
control and quality metric data collection/reporting.
C. Core Architecture, Cloud, and Infrastructure
1) Does your solution support cloud-hosted, fully on-premise, or a cloud-hybrid
architecture? If cloud elements are used, specify CJIS compliance approach.
2) Detail how your platform achieves High Availability (HA) matching engine redundancy at
the component layer, separating local failover architecture from secondary Disaster
Recovery (DR) operations.
3) Detail how your platform supplies MobileID access and network management
capabilities that ensure 24x7 connectivity to ABIS data for field identity checks and jail
intake/release.
4) Detail the exact software stack dependencies required by your platform (e.g.,
microservices framework, queue managers, database indexing models).
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5) Specify whether workstation nodes require native thick-client software installations,
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), or standard web browsers with or without drivers to
interact with custom hardware (e.g. fingerprint scanners).
6) Describe any additional hardware, software, licensing, or peripherals (e.g., Appendix F-
certified printers, specialized booking camera arrays) that may need to be purchased
outside of a primary contract to take advantage of the full functionality of your solution.
7) Describe your process and approach to driver and firmware updates for vendor provided
hardware to ensure security and industry standards are continually met. Describe how
this is applied to software maintenance and change order processes.
8) Describe your tools to integrate with other ABIS systems, such as CAL-DOJ Latent
Gateway (DOJ and FBI Searching, UL registration, reverse search results, tenprint
inquiry, printing), and searching other systems (tenprint and latent workflows) in the
region where MOUs are in place.
D. Security, Encryption, and CJIS Policy
1) Explain how your solution implements Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and data
encryption mechanisms to meet FIPS 140-3 validation requirements for data at rest and
in transit.
2) Detail how your platform logs, secures, and maintains an unalterable chain of custody
for forensic data and user operations.
3) Describe your system's ability to integrate with SEIM and SYSLOG.
4) Describe how your solution supports CJIS policy compliance and future update strategy.
5) Describe your compliance with the latest FBI CJIS Security Policy.
E. Interoperability, Open Standards, and NIEM Compliance
1) Describe how your solution mitigates unstructured data mapping risks from legacy core
applications (e.g., free-text charge entries in JIMS) to preserve strict validation when
sending and receiving data packets to Cal DOJ and FBI NGI.
2) Detail your platform's capability to orchestrate an automated NIST packet, consolidating
fingerprint data, palmprints, mugshots, and Scars/Marks/Tattoos (SMTs) into a single
logical transaction before submission.
3) Describe your solution's level of compliance and native alignment with ANSI/NIST-ITL
and NIEM standards, evaluating the ease of secure data exchange with local JIMS,
RMS, Cal-ID, Cal DOJ, and the FBI NGI.
4) Describe your application's ability to seamlessly parse and transmit standardized
exchange files (ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011/2015) to execute bidirectional partner agency
inquiries.
5) Explain how the architecture maps, publishes, and ingests standardized XML, JSON,
and NIST data packets to interface with local RMS and JIMS without relying on
proprietary translation layers.
6) Describe MobileID integration with the regional ABIS, Cal-DOJ, and the FBI NGI
Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC) database.
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F. Algorithmic Performance and Multi-Modal Matching
1) Detail your matching ability to expand without system re-engineering to accommodate
scaling response times, throughput, and database size for Tenprint-to-Tenprint (TP:TP),
Tenprint-to-Latent (TP:UL), 2-Finger-to-Tenprint (2F:TP), Latent-to-Latent (LT:UL),and
Latent-to-Tenprint (LT:TP) searches, inclusive of searching palmprints.
2) Detail your matching ability to expand without system re-engineering to accommodate
scaling response times, throughput, and database size for facial recognition and iris
searches.
3) What are the most recent formal independent benchmark rankings (e.g., NIST MINEX,
FRVT) your biometric algorithms have achieved? Detail where these results are officially
posted and your release cadence for algorithmic updates to customer deployed versions
of current software and new project/customer installations.
4) Describe how your system allows for individualized algorithm tuning to optimize search
response time, accuracy, and avoid missing matching candidates.
6) Describe your facial recognition capabilities to support criminal investigation lead
generation, regional watchlists, custodial tracking, and crime lab forensic analysis
seamlessly via role-based access.
G. Forensic Latent and Quality Control Interfaces
1) Describe the forensic examiner User Interface (UI), specifically detailing native support
for side-by-side latent print editing, automated 1:1 image resizing, and integrated ACE-V
verification workflow documentation tools.
2) Explain how your quality control engine utilizes NFIQ 2.0 (or equivalent) metrics to
evaluate incoming captures. Detail your platform's handling of borderline quality
thresholds, including guided operator remediation loops and auditable supervisor-
override rules.
3) Detail how your solution manages data conversion of latents to prevent record corruption
or loss within regional Unsolved Latent database.
4) Describe advanced quality control processes standardly available in your toolsets.
Include any option(s) for correcting poor quality prints taken during booking (for example
one bad ring finger roll).
H. Multi-Vendor Support, Cybersecurity, and Governance
1) Support Levels: Define your standard support levels and the typical tasks and technical
background required for each level.
2) Confirm your approach to an agency-led support posture where the County allocates
technical support personnel to manage Tier 1 and Tier 2 triage. Does your model
support a direct escalation path where local support staff route complex tickets directly to
Tier 3 vendor support? Assume Level 1 and Level 2 support provides daily workstation,
server, and vendor application management, excluding specialists (like a DBA).
3) Describe how your company handles multi-vendor integration layers (e.g., Idemia,
DataWorks Plus, Thales, JMS vendors, etc.), each with different components of the
ecosystem.
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