Customs and Border Protection last month issued a Request for Information (RFI) for existing Conveyance Security Devices (CSDs) mounted inside cargo containers to meet requirements that appear softer than expected.

The requirements, released along with the RFI, 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 just over two years ago.

Current CBP Commissioner Ralph Basham 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. Last summer Basham noted that requirements for the devices were forthcoming, although he didn’t specify how demanding they might be.

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 calling for a minimum of a 95 percent probability of detection of a door opening event while the device is armed. That accuracy is “significantly different” than what has been said, Christopher Koch, president of the World Shipping Council, told TR2 in a brief exchange last month.

Another key system requirement is that a CSD have no more than a 4 percent combined probability of a false alarm and probability of critical failure per trip.

Dr. James Giermanski, director of the Centre for Global Commerce at Belmont Abbey College and chairman of the transportation security firm Powers International, tells TR2 that there’s no reason why CBP can’t have more robust requirements for a CSD. He says affordable technology already exists for “all sides” detection of entry into a container. He adds that any CSD should be equipped with satellite communications capabilities rather than the proposed radio frequency communications systems.

Satellite communications permit constant tracking of a container and they also will can be set up to alert authorities if a container has gone off course. Moreover, Giermanski says that terrorists could devise bombs that would be triggered by RF communications links at ports.

Responses to the RFI are due by Feb. 9, and CBP points out that its forthcoming review of the technology 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 says 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, tells TR2.

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 CSD’s are being used by GE, Starbucks Coffee [SBUX], Yang Ming Marine Transport Co., and several other unnamed customers, GE’s Koch says. CommerceGuard readers are installed at 24 ports in the U.S. and overseas, he adds.

Regarding the system performance requirements for CSDs having to do with false alarm rates and failures, Koch wouldn’t discuss whether they might be considered soft. 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,” he says.

When Bonner was chief of CBP he said than 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. A CBP spokeswoman tells TR2 that her agency won’t commit to offering any benefits to shippers until a CSD proves to be effective.

CBP does plans to evaluate the operational capabilities of the CSDs. Demonstrations may include a supply chain scenario from a Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism company in Mexico from the point of stuffing to arrival at a U.S. port of entry along the southern border, the CBP spokeswoman says. Another scenario would involve high-risk commodities in ISO maritime containers as they travel in-bond via Transportation and Exportation (T&E) entry from a West Coast seaport to a land border port along the southern border. A third in-transit scenario would involve high risk agriculture products in-bond via T&E entry through the U.S. from either Canada to Mexico or Mexico to Canada. Finally, CBP would examine a maritime operation where containers are scanned overseas at a Secure Freight Initiative port and laden aboard a vessel bound for the U.S.

CBP says that initial use of a CSD would be for “specific movements or supply chain” where the device may increase security. The agency currently doesn’t plan on using the devices to monitor the status of a container at U.S. or foreign ports, the spokeswoman says.