State Dept. Awards $164M Passport Deal to Stanley

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. State Department has awarded a contract worth up to $164 million for passport printing services to Stanley Inc., a provider of information technology consulting services.
The pact, which includes printing, quality control and mailing of U.S. passports, was awarded on Monday, according to a State Department official who requested anonymity because the contract had not yet been publicly announced.

The deal allows for the work to be done in up to two facilities supplied and operated by Stanley for up to 10 years, but State will retain onsite oversight, the official said.

Representatives from the Arlington, Va.-based company declined to comment Thursday because Stanley remained in its "quiet period" through Monday following its initial public offering last week.

The U.S. government is on pace to issue the new, smart chip-embedded passports nationwide by March 15. State issued 12.1 million passports in 2006, and expects to complete up to 16 million this year and up to 19 million in fiscal 2008, Frank Moss, the agency's deputy assistant secretary for passport services said last week.

The new e-passports include an electronic chip that contains all the data on the paper version -- name, birth date, gender, for example -- and can be read by digital scanners at equipped airports. They cost 14 percent more than their predecessors but State said they will speed going through customs and help enhance border security.

The passports contain multiple security features to prevent the information on the chips from being read, cloned, tracked or changed by outsiders, although privacy groups continue to raise concerns about the security and necessity of the electronic information.

The Government Printing Office manufactures the passports. France's Gemalto and a U.S. subsidiary of Germany's Infineon Technologies AG have been awarded contracts to supply the chips.

The new passports cost $97, which includes a $12 security surcharge added last year. Existing passports without the electronic chips will remain valid until their normal expiration date.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that all but three of the 27 visa waiver program countries met Thursday's deadline for issuing the new e-passports.

The U.S. will continue to work with the European nations of Andorra and Liechtenstein, and the government of Brunei in southeast Asia, to ensure that they meet the requirement as soon as possible. Until e-passports are available, travelers from those countries will need to obtain a visa to enter the U.S., which set the deadline in July 2005.

Globally, there are 550 million passports which need to be updated at a cost of up to $3 billion over the next five years, according to financial services firm Stanford Group Co.'s Washington Research Group. About $300 million will be spent in the U.S., according to Stanford.

Shares of Stanley closed unchanged at $15.95 on the New York Stock Exchange. Its shares were priced last week in an initial public offering at $13.

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By Dan Caterinicchia, AP Business Writer

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