U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is conducting market research for enterprise-level remote document authentication and identity verification technology, according to a sources sought notice posted on SAM.gov.
The notice, published March 31, seeks information from vendors capable of providing tools that authenticate both U.S. and foreign identity documents, perform facial comparison with presentation attack defense, and extract structured data from identity documents. The system must operate remotely across all major mobile phones and web browsers, allowing applicants to complete identity checks without visiting a USCIS office in person.
USCIS specified that the solution must support multiple agency programs through a shared API or verification engine with program-specific configurations. The agency currently operates more than 130 Application Support Centers across the United States and its territories, where applicants submit to in-person document review and biometric collection. A remote-capable verification platform would allow the agency to shift portions of that process to digital channels.
The three core technical requirements in the notice are document authentication, which would confirm that a submitted identity document is genuine and unaltered; facial comparison with liveness detection, which would match a selfie to a document photo while detecting spoofing attempts such as printed images, video replays, or masks; and data extraction, which would capture structured fields from identity documents for downstream processing.
The request falls under NAICS code 513210, Software Publishers. Responses are due April 14, 2026. No solicitation has been issued, and the notice is classified as preliminary market research.
The RFI follows a broader pattern of biometric modernization across the Department of Homeland Security. Earlier this year, DHS issued a separate RFI seeking enterprise-wide biometric matching software to serve all major DHS components, including USCIS, under a single platform. USCIS has also expanded biometric data requirements for H-1B visa holders, adding digital identity verification to employment-based immigration cases that previously did not require it.
DHS has separately evaluated commercial identity verification vendors through its Remote Identity Validation Rally, where IDEMIA Public Security led on spoof detection and selfie matching accuracy. Presentation attack defense, a core requirement in the USCIS notice, is one of the three capabilities tested in that evaluation.
Sources: SAM.gov
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
