Customs and Border Protection officials are still finalizing a methodology to identify potentially risky foreign shipments transported to or through U.S. seaports, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

CBP has required oceangoing imports, since January 2009, to be tagged with 12 data elements, in many cases even before the shipments--mostly containers--have been loaded onto a vessel. The data elements include points such as the seller, the buyer, country of origin and place of delivery. About 80 percent of all shipments as of July 2010 satisfy the filing requirements, CBP officials told GAO auditors for a report dated Sept. 10 but not released publically until Oct. 12. The rule requiring the data elements is known as the 10+2 rule, since 10 of the data elements come from importers and two from vessel carriers.

Initial tests of the in-development CBP methodology show that risk scores in some cases decrease by half when compared to the existing methodology, the report states. Access to information generated before shippers send CBP a ship manifest allows the agency to obtain sufficient information to determine that a container is not in fact high risk, or possibly ensure that high-risk containers are never loaded in the first place. Although CBP has the authority to issue a "do not load" order, it has yet to do so, the GAO report states.

Current shipment risk methodology--which takes advantage of the 10+2 data elements, but only in a tactical, rather than a strategic, manner, according to the GAO--determines risk by comparing shipment data to national security threat rules within the Traveler Enforcement Compliance System, which are utilized by another system called the Automated Targeting System.

CBP officials told the GAO that they're unable to say when the strategic methodology will be finalized and rolled out since the process of completing it involves iterations of testing.

The GAO recommended that DHS establish milestones and time frames for updating the methodology. In its official response to the report, DHS said it has updated the methodology to account for some additional risk factors, and plans to fully integrate updates by November 2010.

For more:
- download the report, GAO-10-841 (.pdf)

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