The Home Office has quietly announced plans to spend up to £25 million on upgrading the technology which controls the UK border.
It has published a tender seeking to procure "software integration consultancy services" capable of spearheading "the delivery of major technology programmes" designed to upgrade systems that control the flow of people and services into Britain.
The tender commits the Home Office to delivering three "major technology programmes" which were launched well before the Labour government took power in July 2024: the Immigration Platform Technology (IPT), Future Borders and Immigration System (FBIS) and the New Plan for Immigration (NPI).
These projects are categorised under the Migration and Borders Technology Portfolio (MBTP), which is run in "a product-centric way" and "encompasses all technology delivery and support" for migration, asylum, and border control.
Continuing the blizzard of acronyms, these "products" are organised across "product families" which includes Crossing the Border (CtB) - the "steady state services and products which controls the flow of people and services across the borders".
"This is done principally via the Primary Control Points, mediated by a Border Force officer, or via an e-gate indirectly supervised by an officer," the Home Office wrote. "Information from ports is processed by a central collection of systems, hosted in the cloud and on premise. These systems are built on top of a number of infrastructure platforms, leveraging a hybrid cloud model."
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The systems on the border operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year which means that "high degrees of resilience and availability" are a must.
Currently, border applications run on "diverse" stacks and are expected to "evolve over the next 5 years in line with government policy and operational need" (translation: they will flex to meet the whims of the Labour government).
The system is regarded as critical national infrastructure, incorporating both official and secret data sets.
So what exactly will a contractor be doing to earn their 25 million quid?
The tender reveals that digital suppliers will be providing "transition and transformation leadership for the development, management, and improvements to a range of digital outcomes within the Future Borders and Immigration (FBIS) roadmap.
The FBIS (which you can read about here) is "underpinned by a clear ambition to put in place the world’s most effective and secure border system".
This involves expanding e-gates so they are used by children under 12 as part of a proof-of-concept exercise. Automation will also be deployed across all transport modes, enabling the piloting of “contactless travel.” Additionally, chatbot and voice-bot functionality will allow customers to resolve queries without the help of human agent (allegedly).
If you want to help the Home Office beef up the border, you can get more information here.
