FCC to Review Trade Data Collection as ITDS Makes Progress
While there has been some FCC progress toward an International Trade Data System, the complexity of bringing together a disparate group of governmental bodies with differing statutory requirements presents roadblocks, said government and industry officials in recent interviews. Led by Customs and Border Protection, the work on ITDS continues to have momentum from President Barack Obama's executive order in February that created a 2016 deadline for finishing ITDS (see 1402200028), they said. The FCC plans to review its international trade data collection processes as part of its work on ITDS, said an agency official. ITDS's goal is to simplify the filing of cargo import information required by numerous federal agencies.
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The FCC exemplifies how the work toward an ITDS is moving forward and some of the difficulties that work involves. For example, the FCC and CBP have not yet been able agree to a memorandum of understanding necessary for federal privacy protections, even though the agencies have discussed the MOU for several years now. The MOUs have been a roadblock for CBP's work on ITDS with a number of agencies, though there has been more progress recently. Both agencies are actively negotiating the agreement, said an FCC official.
The FCC, one of the 47 agencies with a hand in regulating U.S. imports, requires importers to submit Form 740 for authorized radio services and devices that can cause spectrum interference. Such devices, which include any device that uses internal electrical signals, require that an importer, ultimate consignee or designated broker declare that the goods meet FCC regulations that prevent interference with other devices. There are a total of about 2 million Form 740 filings each year, the FCC said in 2012. Currently, CBP collects that information on behalf of the FCC, often on paper. A finished ITDS will allow importers "to make a single electronic report and the relevant data will be distributed to the appropriate agencies," said the most recent report to Congress on the subject.
The FCC uses the information listed on the form "for enforcement purposes, especially where we believe it would be helpful to identify manufacturers that are illegally importing illegal electronic equipment," emailed an FCC official. The agency expects to use the move to automation as a chance to review its data collection processes, said the official. "The transition to ITDS and full electronic data collection provides the Commission the opportunity to review its data collection efforts and we are evaluating what steps we can do to streamline our data collection and avoid some potential duplication with CBP," emailed the official. "We don’t expect any increase in the amount of data that filers would need to submit to CBP when reporting imports of FCC regulated items."
Despite the lack of an MOU with the FCC, CBP has developed a preliminary "onboarding plan" to help support the efforts of other agencies, including the FCC, said Deborah Augustin, acting executive director of CBP's Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Business Office, in an interview. The plan includes a review of business rules and the impact on policies or regulations, said Augustin. As with all of the agencies involved with ITDS development, the FCC will be "examining the manner in which they are receiving their data" as part of the onboarding plan, said Augustin.
CBP is also developing a schedule with the agencies, including the FCC, for pilot programs to test the agencies' states of readiness for the electronic submission of import data through ACE, said Augustin. For now, the FCC's piloting will involve simply automating the information collection that's currently in place, she said.