Plans for Secure Freight pilot test underway, DHS official says
The Department of Homeland Security plans to begin a pilot test of its Secure Freight initiative by the end of the year as it tries to gather more types of commercial data for risk-targeting of containerized imports, Elaine Dezenski, acting assistant secretary for policy development, said Monday.
Secure Freight is the brainchild of DHS Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson. He is seeking to develop a system in which the private sector plays a much larger role in collecting and potentially analyzing additional supply chain information about inbound shipments.
Dezenski said the department is working to put the concept into practice. DHS will seek advice from the private sector through the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) and possibly through a formal request for information, to determine what private sector capabilities are available to help with data collection. She said the department hopes to start a third-party data collection project before the end of 2006.
“Ultimately, for this concept to prove viable, we need to prove that we have a better risk-assessment decision, a better admissibility decision based on additional data,” Dezenski said in a speech at a maritime and port security conference hosted by trade publication Marine Log.
“The less data we hold in our own systems the easier it is for us to manage these tools” for screening data and inspecting cargo, she said.
The department is working to clarify roles and responsibilities for each party in the process, articulate its needs, identify how to interface existing government systems such as the Automated Commercial Environment for trade data collection and the Automated Targeting System with private sector data collection efforts, and protect the data and system from exploitation, Dezenski said.
“It’s important to identify the parameters so it’s not just collecting data for the sake of having more of it,” she said.
Secure Freight eventually could incorporate many third-party providers of different types of data, including not-for-profit organizations and consortia, Dezenski explained.
DHS is also interested in turning physical evidence about the integrity of a container into useful data to assist Customs and Border Protection’s risk management system for inspecting containers, she said.
Someday that could mean using non-intrusive imaging and radiation detection equipment to automatically scan all containers at a foreign port and plug the data into the targeting system to determine whether the contents match the manifest or require further inspection, Dezenski said.
While not mentioned by name, the goal resembles a pilot project being conducted by SAIC and terminal operators in Hong Kong in which all containers entering the terminal are scanned prior to loading on a vessel and their images stored for later reference.
“We could make a more detailed assessment of risk associated with the container and determine whether we want to do additional inspections,” Dezenski said. These capabilities are important because “we must keep the algorithms, the logic and the intelligence on which the targeting systems run at least one step ahead of our adversaries’ ability to game the system.”
Dezenski made clear that DHS is seriously considering the use of third-party inspectors at foreign packing and port locations, an idea that has been resisted by CBP for intruding on the government’s role for protecting the border and collecting import taxes.
Dezenski said, “a third-party inspection could be limited to unauthorized dangerous goods” and not involve trade compliance checks. She said this approach had merit because the private contractor could investigate threats at the point of discovery. That would reduce the chance that freight would be slowed down waiting for law enforcement officials to arrive and resolve every anomaly detected by imaging machines, electronic seals and other monitoring devices.
“A third-party inspection would not need to duplicate that traditional customs inspection. It could be limited to the identification of unauthorized dangerous goods that would make the container a threat to the transport system and public safety,” she said.
Asked when the department would issue it’s long-awaited rule requiring secure mechanical bolt seals on all containers, Dezenski said the sticking point is the complexity of implementing the requirement for carriers to verify the presence of a functional, approved seal. She indicated that the department is also trying to coordinate any rulemaking with the advent of electronic seals, which potentially could make the manual verification process easier.
She declined to say whether the department is holding off on issuing the mechanical seal ruling until an approved electronic seal is developed.
“That decision has not been made internally, but the requirement for a mechanical seal has pushed the industry to move quicker to develop a better e-seal technology solution” and what an e-seal protocol might look like. “To a certain extent, the industry may drive (a better rule) because industry will figure out a better, more efficient way to get things done.”