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Security Card Concepts (formerly Biometric Card Services), the company responsible for producing the PSC since 2010, eventually won the bumper contract as the sole bidder
A NUMBER OF specialist companies that make security card prototypes declined to apply for a bumper multi-million euro contract to produce the second generation Public Services Card (PSC) because they felt the process was unfairly slanted towards the company that held the previous tender.
The as-yet unrealised second iteration of the controversial card, which was first introduced in 2012, went out to tender in February of this year for the production of two million new cards.
The PSC has come in for significant criticism from both data protection and privacy advocates in recent times, most notably since plans were announced for the government to expand the card as a prerequisite for accessing all State services in 2017.
The initial tender to produce the card was held by the company Biometric Card Services (BCS), a subsidiary of Bray-based security contractor DLRS.
That entity, which renamed itself as Security Card Concepts shortly before the new tender was awarded in May for as-yet unknown reasons, ended up being the sole bidder (in partnership with Idemia, a subsidiary of Dutch-based company Morpho) for the contract, worth €9.4 million, perhaps surprising given the lucrative nature of the tender and the competitive nature of the security technologies field.
Unfair
Two separate companies, working in partnership, wrote to DEASP to complain about the perceived lack of fairness surrounding the tender, and to state categorically that they would not be applying as a result, according to documents released to TheJournal.ie under Freedom of Information.
A NUMBER OF specialist companies that make security card prototypes declined to apply for a bumper multi-million euro contract to produce the second generation Public Services Card (PSC) because they felt the process was unfairly slanted towards the company that held the previous tender.
The as-yet unrealised second iteration of the controversial card, which was first introduced in 2012, went out to tender in February of this year for the production of two million new cards.
The PSC has come in for significant criticism from both data protection and privacy advocates in recent times, most notably since plans were announced for the government to expand the card as a prerequisite for accessing all State services in 2017.
The initial tender to produce the card was held by the company Biometric Card Services (BCS), a subsidiary of Bray-based security contractor DLRS.
That entity, which renamed itself as Security Card Concepts shortly before the new tender was awarded in May for as-yet unknown reasons, ended up being the sole bidder (in partnership with Idemia, a subsidiary of Dutch-based company Morpho) for the contract, worth €9.4 million, perhaps surprising given the lucrative nature of the tender and the competitive nature of the security technologies field.
Unfair
Two separate companies, working in partnership, wrote to DEASP to complain about the perceived lack of fairness surrounding the tender, and to state categorically that they would not be applying as a result, according to documents released to TheJournal.ie under Freedom of Information.
The two are Credit Card Services Limited (CCS), an Irish company based in Clonsilla in west Dublin, which describes itself as “the leading provider of plastic cards and systems in Ireland”, and its would-be partner for the PSC-2 project Gemalto, a Dutch security giant with 15,000 employees and annual revenue in 2017 of €3 billion.
Both submitted detailed correspondence at end March to DEASP using the State’s public procurement portal, Etenders, saying that they would not be applying for the contract and stating the reasons why.
Subsequently, both companies delivered letters to the department reiterating those reasons.
An undated letter from CCS to the department states that it was not in a position to apply due to a “lack of clear guidelines” regarding how the tender should be applied for, the “short lead time for the response given the highly technical requirements”, and “the very short implementation period and associated draconian penalties for any delays”.
That short period “gives any incumbent supplier an unfair advantage”, the company said, the incumbent being Biometric Card Services. It’s unclear what the penalties in question were.
Gemalto, meanwhile, submitted a similar letter to the department on 26 April via Etenders, stating that the technical requirements (which would have been based on Biometric Card Services own technology) which the contract would entail represented “a level of risk that is unacceptable to Gemalto”.
“Gemalto had intended to bid”, it said, “as we believe we can bring substantial value and benefits” to the department.
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