UK government cancels e-Borders contract

22nd Jul 2010 13:24

The UK government's cancellation of a £750m e-Borders contract with prime contractor Raytheon Systems will have a knock-on effect on Serco and QinetiQ. Both Serco and Qinetiq are involved in the Trusted Borders consortium which Raytheon heads. Serco was responsible for infrastructure and service management, while QinetiQ was responsible for security accreditation. The Home Office says that the project is already 12 months behind schedule, which means that Raytheon has been in breach of contract. The project involves developing a system for the electronic collection and checking of individual passenger details against UK police, security and immigration watchlists.The original contract was signed in November 2007 and then subsequently extended to make it worth £750m. So far £188m has been spent on the e-Borders project. According to the Home Office statement: "What we currently have in place is the software for the collection of data in advance of travel and its subsequent storage; the technology to enable carriers to feed information into a central hub and a National Border Targeting Centre which opened earlier this year and where the information is checked against watchlists and reviewed by the police and border force officers".