Bush considers sharing export data with foreign governments
Freight forwarders expressed alarm Tuesday at the prospect that confidential business data that shippers include in export declarations to assist the U.S. government track trade flows and restricted export items might eventually be shared with foreign governments.
The U.S. Census Bureau, which guards detailed data it collects from companies in order to compile foreign trade statistics, is under pressure to share export data with the Department of Homeland Security, and possibly other law enforcement agencies, according to Jerome Greenwell, chief of regulations for Census' Foreign Trade Division.
The Department of Homeland Security is seeking the data to help it with antiterrorism intelligence activities, and has expressed an interest in sharing data with foreign governments for that purpose, Greenwell and industry sources close to the issue said during the National Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association convention in Orlando, Fla.
Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, under whose domain the Census Bureau resides, must decide on whether to release detailed data from shipper's export declarations (SEDs) to DHS.
Commerce Department spokeswoman ER Gregory confirmed the department is studying the issuing, but declined to give a timetable for a decision. 'The Census Bureau takes with utmost seriousness protecting its respondents,' she said, underscoring the need to balance data security with broader security issues. Census summaries of aggregate commercial activity data are available to anybody, but the agency works hard to protect proprietary data found at the transaction or company level.
The NCBFAA strongly urged Evans in a letter Monday not to acquiesce to the wholesale release of SED data to DHS and indirectly with foreign governments, who might pass the information on to domestic companies to give them a competitive advantage.
'Information contained in the SED, provided in bulk raw form for a foreign nation to use or distribute freely, poses a serious potential threat to our export business overseas,' said NCBFAA President Federico Zuniga, according to a copy of the letter obtained by American Shipper.
'Even though it is cast as an essential element of homeland security, we believe that careful scrutiny will dictate a far more cautious approach to protecting vital commercial information,' he said.
The trade association said it does not oppose sharing of information with U.S. allies on a case-by-case basis if the foreign government shows cause that a high-risk shipment might be headed its way.
NCBFAA counsel Jon Kent said the DHS request opens up a Pandora's Box of ways foreign governments could misuse the information, including setting duty and tax assessment rates on U.S. goods or cross-checking the valuation and classification of goods against what a company reported to the U.S. government.
The impetus for the DHS request for Census data apparently comes from Mexico, which says it wants the data to target high-risk shipments for closer examination, according to Greenwell and NCBFAA counsel Jon Kent.
The NCBFAA said it fears granting Mexico's request, will set a precedent for sharing data with countries around the world. The Agriculture Ocean Transportation Committee, comprised of U.S. agriculture shippers, was the first group to complain to the Commerce Department about the potential damage to U.S. exporters from sharing data with foreign agencies.
The data-sharing request comes on the heels of a demand by the Costa Rican government for importers to produce a copy of the SED for exports from the United States to Costa Rica. The Foreign Trade Division posted a notice on its Web site Feb. 17 warning exporters, freight forwarders and carriers not to comply with the Costa Rican demand because it is illegal to disclose information on those forms to unauthorized parties not responsible for regulating U.S. exports.
'The Foreign Trade Division is committed to maintaining the confidentiality of information filed with the U.S. Census Bureau. Providing this information to the government of Costa Rica would be contrary to the national interest as it would seriously impact further attempts to complete the mission of the Census Bureau,' said Harvey Monk Jr., chief of the Foreign Trade Division, in the notice.
Greenwell said the Costa Rican government shelved its demand for U.S. export data after the State Department complained.