The Employment Development Department (EDD) is seeking a robust, comprehensive, and user-friendly solution to ensure program integrity, deliver comprehensive and real-time Identity Proofing and deliver in-depth reporting and workflow customization. EDD seeks to provide a modern, integrated, and thorough system of checks and balances for our staff.

The California Employment Development Department (EDD) administers one of the nation's largest public benefit systems with over 21 million claimants and 63 million claims being filed for Unemployment Insurance (UI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Paid Family Leave (PFL). EDD supports hundreds of thousands of employers, medical providers, and other stake holders. Through EDDnext, the state will design and implement systems and services that are easier to use and adapt to changing circumstances. To achieve improvements, efficiencies, and uniformity across multiple program areas, EDD will incorporate several planning initiatives, standardization efforts, foundational changes, and input from multiple programs.

In the middle of a global pandemic, millions of Americans lost their jobs causing unemployment claims to skyrocket. The newly unemployed looked to their local unemployment insurance benefits (UIB) program to help keep them afloat. Unemployment insurance benefits systems were pushed to their limits, dispersing billions of dollars included as part of the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of March 2020.

• 28.6M New and Reopened Claims Filed Since March 2020

• $186B Total Benefits Paid Since March 2020

• 80.3% Claims Paid Within One Week of First Certification Received 8,188 Backlog of Claims Past 21 Days Pending EDD Action

EDD needed to support citizens at unprecedented levels in unprecedented times, while facing increased threats of fraud. To mitigate future fraud attempts in an impending economic downturn, EDD must improve its security posture, including fraud detection and analytics.

Problem Statement:

EDD is seeking a robust, comprehensive, and user-friendly identity proofing solution to ensure program integrity, deliver comprehensive real-time identity proofing results, and to provide in-depth reporting and workflow customization.

EDD seeks to provide a modern, integrated, and thorough system of checks and balances that will provide a frictionless experience for customers while expanding EDD's current scope of fraud detection.

As a result of this initiative, EDD aims to:

• Pose a minimal amount of friction for legitimate customers and include a continuous feedback model that considers outcomes from EDD administrative eligibility determinations.
• Include a proofing method that does not require a customer to provide their Social Security Number.
• Provide a secondary proofing method for customers that cannot be verified through the initial screening process so that legitimate customers can immediately address outstanding issues regarding their identity – for example document upload services.
• Allow EDD to assess risk tied to a customer’s email address, IP address, and device as well as geospatial alerts.

In-scope Requirements:

• The solution shall integrate with the myEDD online customer portal, existing benefit applications, EDD data warehouse, and future EDDNext solutions.
• The solution shall include analytics to monitor and measure customer experience and to identify drop-off points in task flows.
• The solution shall provide transparent business rules that EDD can modify and can make available to external parties upon request.
• The solution shall provide an application programming interface that can be easily integrated with applications built in Salesforce and .NET technologies.
• The solution shall support 200,000 identity proofing requests per month on average and can scale by at least twenty times the average volume based on demand.
• The solution shall align with the NIST 800-63A standards including IAL2 Remote and be FedRAMP moderate authorized or have a roadmap for authorization.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Experience with public benefit systems and organizations including an understanding of the United States Department of Labor and federal and state statutes and regulations for EDD benefit programs.
• Experience with a diverse software ecosystem and the ability to understand the environment and provide a workable future state.​
• The ability to support the diverse language and accessibility needs of EDD’s customers.​
• Must be a registered vendor with a valid California Software Licensing Program contract number.