The Wall Street Journal-20080213-Lockheed Martin Wins FBI Contract

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Lockheed Martin Wins FBI Contract

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Associated Press

The Federal Bureau of Investigation selected Lockheed Martin Corp. for a contract worth as much as $1 billion to build an updated database for fingerprints and other biometric information.

Lockheed Martin, which built and maintains the FBI's current 10- fingerprint database, was the expected winner among analysts.

Lockheed Martin's Transportation and Security Solutions branch won the one-year deal valued at about $40 million, but if all nine one- year options are exercised, the contract's value will approach $1 billion. Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin beat out teams led by Northrop Grumman Corp. and International Business Machines Corp.

The deal is a major upgrade to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System because it allows the agency to more easily share antiterrorism information with domestic and international partners, and may include other identification methods, including palm prints, iris scans and facial recognition.