Security News > 2021 > August > Surveillance tech company sues Police Digital Service over 'flawed' scoring of bids on £18m contract
A company is suing the Police Digital Service over a framework worth up to £18m after losing a bid to provide a mass surveillance platform, claiming police managers broke laws on the awarding of public contracts.
Excession Technologies Ltd is suing the organisation formerly known as the Police ICT Company on the grounds that it broke the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations after allegedly misunderstanding Excession's platform was capable of doing.
Police were looking to buy an IT platform for managing ongoing surveillance operations, appointing the winner of the bid to a national single-supplier framework for surveillance operations room services.
Excession argues that the PDS broke the DSPCR by awarding the contract to its rival, Airbox Systems, whose bid it claims was "Abnormally low", and that it also made errors in scoring presentations made by competing companies during a demonstration day.
The surveillance platform, it claims, falls within that exemption.
Excession seeks a declaration that the procurement was unlawful, that its lawsuit against the PDS was not time-barred, and that PDS pays its legal costs.