A US-based IT services company with past involvement in US border militarization and federal prison phone services. These activities were acquired by SAIC.
Unisys Corp, headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, provides information technology (IT) services to governments and businesses. In 2020, SAIC acquired Unisys Federal, the company’s U.S. government contracting segment. Unisys reclassified all its federal contracts as “discontinued” and stated that its “ability to return to the U.S. federal market is restricted” by its agreements with SAIC. The information below reflects the status of the company’s federal contracts at the time of the SAIC acquisition.
Until 2020, Unisys was a major longtime contractor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in particular for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It was highlighted as one of the fourteen main border security companies in a 2019 report by the Transnational Institute and No Mas Muertes. Between 2004 and 2019, Unisys held CBP contracts worth more than $2.6 billion to provide IT services and surveillance and monitoring technology.
Unisys was awarded a $371 million contract in 2018 to provide IT services for CBP's Targeting & Analysis Systems Program Directorate (TASPD), responsible for targeting and screening passengers and vehicles crossing U.S. borders and sharing their information with other DHS databases. SAIC took over this activity in 2020.
In 2016, CBP awarded Unisys a three-year $229.7 million contract to implement biometric checks at U.S. ports of entry to confirm the arrival and departure of all travelers. This project was expedited in 2018 as part of a Trump administration executive order, and the company was awarded an additional contract.
In the past, Unisys also worked to deploy automated license plate readers (ALPR) and radio frequency identification technology to screen vehicles crossing U.S. borders. This project was part of CBP’s Land Border Integration (LBI) project, which was active between 2010 and 2017.
In addition to its contracts with CBP, Unisys had provided multiple services to U.S. federal prisons. In 2005, the Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons awarded Unisys a $96 million contract to install, maintain, and program telephone systems in over 110 BOP prisons nationwide.
- On April 23, 2019 Berkeley City Council passed Sanctuary Contracting Ordinance on Tuesday after months of postponement. It is designed to prevent the city from entering into contracts with businesses that act as data brokers or provide extreme vetting services to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This ordinance would most likely include Unisys who is listed as an ICE Data Broker by the #DeportICE Campaign.