That day is around the corner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say, after an electronic imaging capability was demonstrated at an interagency conference on import safety last week.
Document imaging is one of three priorities identified last fall by the board of the International Trade Data System, which is being designed as a central information hub to allow companies to submit a single filing and have their data automatically distributed to government agencies responsible for monitoring imports and exports.
When CBP officers request a document the entry filer can create a document image, tag it with relevant data elements and transmit it to the agency through the Automated Broker Interface or two other existing message conduits, Cynthia Allen, executive director of trade modernization and Automated Commercial Environment Coordination Office, told reporters at the import safety event.
CBP inspectors and their counterparts at partner agencies will be able to view the data through their respective portals to ACE.
Allen said CBP just began testing the document imaging process with the Environmental Protection Agency and a handful of trade partners, but expects the Food and Drug Administration, Food Safety and Inspection Service and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to be able to receive images too during the limited pilot phase.
'There's more work to be done to determine how exactly this capability is going to work to support these other agencies' missions, but basically we're looking for opportunities to eliminate paper and expand the possibilities for all electronic filing, and with that remote location filing,' said Timothy Skud, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for tax, trade and tariff policy, during a webinar Wednesday to update the public about the status of ACE development.
Skud is also chairman of the ITDS board of directors.
Remote location filing is a program that allows importers or customs brokers to electronically file customs entries and supporting documents from any location outside the port of arrival. So far only consumption entries can be transmitted to CBP, but the agency said it plans to expand the entry types that can be processed through RLF once more functionalities are available in ACE.
CBP officials were able to accelerate development of document imaging for ACE and ITDS after realizing they could modify similar capabilities already used by other programs rather than building a system from scratch, Daniel Baldwin, assistant commissioner for international trade and head of requirements-setting for ACE, said during the webinar. ' Eric Kulisch
