International Cargo Conundrum

By Leslie K. Downey

Global Standards Critical to Container Security Technology Adoption
The WCO has endorsed a set of specifications for mechanical seals developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 17712. Though not yet ratified, ISO PAS 17712 has effectively become a standard. Consistent with WCO, CBP has made the use of ISO PAS 17712-conformant seals a requirement for C-TPAT certification.

Although e-seals are not yet required, some companies are using them. Recently a group of high-profile companies, including Boeing, conducted e-seal trials at the request of CBP. Ken Konigsmark, C-TPAT program manager at Boeing, told attendees that his company had tested two different e-seals on marine cargo: "a 'homegrown device' and GE Security's CommerceGuard product." He indicated that CBP would be releasing the results of this and other trials in the first quarter of 2006.

E-seals clearly have numerous advantages over mechanical seals. They can be used to identify containers and report intrusions automatically, while mechanical devices cannot. Furthermore, e-seals can be connected to sensors that detect movement, intrusion through any of the six container sides, and radioactive, biological and chemical hazards.

International e-seal standards have not yet been issued, however, with several ramifications: First, no uniform frequency for e-seals has been adopted across all countries. "The WCO needs to harmonize," said McGuire. Second, the interoperability of different vendors' products is not assured. Finally, most terminals at ports and other facilities where containers are handled have not had the financial justification to deploy readers and related infrastructure.

As a result, no e-seal product can be used worldwide. "To make large investments in e-seals and supporting technology today would not pay," stated several speakers. Furthermore, with no worldwide consensus on functionality, "some container security vendors are hedging their bets by morphing disparate technologies into 'Swiss Army knife' solutions that are not practical or cost-effective," noted Randy Mullett, vice president of government relations for supply chain solution provider CNF.

ISO's E-Seal Standard Not Imminent
ISO has been working for six years on a standard for electronic freight container seals, ISO 18185. It falls under the ISO 18000 standards, "RFID for Item Management." ISO 18185 will likely conform to ISO PAS 17712, the standard for mechanical seals, but will electronically evidence tampering or intrusion through the container doors. It is read-only and includes both passive and active protocols to support a range of costs and capabilities. The passive protocol will probably use the 862 to 928 MHz frequency range. The 433 MHz frequency, long used by the U.S. Department of Defense for container tracking, has been proposed for the active protocol. However, the U.S. and most other countries outside Europe have not yet approved the allocation of 433 MHz for freight containers.

While significant progress was made in 2005, the release of ISO 18185 is not yet imminent. Some relative newcomers to ISO Technical Committee 104 ("TC 104")—the group responsible for freight container technology standards—have questioned a number of provisions in the standard, including the lack of support for data security (encryption) and data integrity. Testing has been extended to address those concerns.

An ISO standard for automatic freight container identification (for tracking) already exists. Developed in the early 1990s, ISO 10374 uses passive, read-only, dual-frequency RFID (850-950 MHz and 2.4-2.5 GHz). Although container tracking does contribute to container security, this is not a container seal standard and has not been recommended for use by the WCO or the CBP. Today, only a fraction of the world's containers carry ISO 10374-conformant tags. ISO is revising the standard in response to demand for an RFID tag that would survive the life of the container without maintenance. Also in progress is ISO 17363, a rewritable RFID container tag standard for use by shippers and consignees in supply chain applications.