By Calvin Biesecker
Customs and Border Protection this week issued a Request for Information (RFI) for existing Conveyance Security Devices (CSDs) mounted inside cargo containers to meet requirements that appear less robust than expected.
The requirements, released along with the RFI on Wednesday, seek information on CSDs that can report if, and when, cargo container doors are opened or closed, and communicate that information wirelessly via secure fixed and handheld readers. That door open, door close monitoring is in line with former CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner’s initial goal of a CSD device, which would simply alert homeland security officials to an unauthorized opening of a shipping container’s doors. Bonner left CBP two years ago.
Under current Commissioner Ralph Basham’s leadership, CBP has been pushing for CSDs that could detect breaches on all six sides of a container, not just the doors where cargo is loaded and unloaded (Defense Daily, Dec. 20, 2006).
This past summer Basham noted that requirements for the devices were forthcoming, although he didn’t specify how demanding they might be (Defense Daily, July 18.).
Actually the just released requirements call for sensing on just the opening, removal, and closing of the right door of a cargo container.
The documents say that requirements will evolve to sense for opening, removal, and closing of the left door.
One area of the new requirements sure to be questioned by various trade groups representing shippers, importers and exporters, is a system performance requirement calling for a minimum of a 95 percent probability of detection of a door opening event while the device is armed. That accuracy level is “significantly different” than what has been said, Christopher Koch, president of the World Shipping Council, told Defense Daily yesterday.
In late October, Koch told a House panel that it was important for CBP to release its draft requirements for a CSD so that the public could comment before they become part of a container security strategy.
Another key system requirement is that a CSD have no more than a 4 percent combined probability of false alarm and probability of critical failure per trip.
Responses to the RFI are due by Feb. 9, 2008, and CBP pointed out that the its latest review of the technology that could meet its requirements doesn’t guarantee that it will buy anything. Still, General Electric [GE], whose GE Security subsidiary has developed a CSD that is being used by several customers, welcomed the new requirements and said it will respond to the RFI.
The Department of Homeland Security and CBP recognize the “vulnerability” to containers now, Randy Koch, general manager for GE Security’s cargo security business, told Defense Daily.
GE Security, along with several international firms, owns the CommerceGuard container security solution, which comprises a CSD mounted inside a cargo container, and a two-way reader infrastructure that allows communications between the device and designated authorities.
So far “thousands” of CommerceGuard CSDs are being used by GE, Starbucks Coffee [SBUX], Yang Ming Marine Transport Co., and several other unnamed customers, GE’s Koch said. CommerceGuard readers are installed at 24 ports in the United States and overseas, he added.
Regarding the system performance requirements of CSD’s having to do with false alarm rates and failures, Koch declined to say whether they might be considered soft.
He said that compared to today’s “flimsy” bolt and rubber seals used to physically secure containers, the “real story is going from “zero percent detection to 95 percent detection.”
When Bonner was chief of CBP he said that an acceptable CSD, along with other various trade security features, would open a “green lane” to commerce for expedited crossings at U.S. ports of entry. CBP’s new RFI doesn’t mention anything about commercial benefits to shippers and the requirements document doesn’t address “commercial capabilities or their implementations.”
Shipper data can be collected and transmitted via the CSDs, but it won’t be allowed to be sent to CBP’s Data Consolidation Points, the document says.
CBP’s requirements documents also lay out what consititutes a complete CSD system, communications ranges for the CSDs, how the devices must communicate, when they are armed and deactivated, data encryption, reader infrastructure features, and much more.