Home Office Crossing the Border Procurement 2024 - Products, services and Support (Border crossing, Helios, Border Platforms and Level 2 Support)

Crossing the Border (CtB) is 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. Information from ports is processed by a central collection of systems, hosted in the cloud and on premise.

Home Office are seeking a system management, development and associated level 2 support partner for the listed systems - Border Crossing (BX), Helios, Border Platforms and

Border Crossing (BX) is made up of several parts. At the Passenger Control Point (PCP) BX allows Border Force officers to search passenger records using biometrics and documents. In addition, checks take place on the passport chip to verify its validity. In the back-office BX Tools allows Border Force officers to investigate passengers more thoroughly, either before, during or after they have crossed the border. The BX Admin tool provides authorised users with access to BX audit and performance data.

Helios is a maintenance and sharing of watchlist data. This data then supports the end-to-end passenger journey - from visa applications and pre-departure checks right through to crossing the border.

Borders Platforms is responsible for building and maintaining the hybrid platform which enables tenant teams (currently CtB) to effectively develop and run current and future services that keep the UK border operational.

Level 2 support is in relation the Border crossing and Helios for the duration of the contract.