BIS to Unveil SNAP-R Address Verification, Single Platform for Interagency License Review
Information technology is one of the four pillars of Export Control Reform, and “as time continues on, we’ll loom larger,” said Bernie Kritzer, director of the Office of Exporter Services at the Update 2012 Conference on Export Controls and Policy in Washington July 17-19. Kritzer and his colleagues discussed several IT-related initiatives BIS is working on, including address verification in SNAP-R, the transition of the back-end of the licensing process to the interagency USXPORTS platform, and BIS’ eventual hopes for a single submission platform, among other things.
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Addition of Address Validation to SNAP-R Imminent
Currently, if an invalid address is entered into a SNAP-R license application, the applicant may be contacted by a licensing officer, the application may be returned, or the mistake may delay the process, said Aleck Che-Mponda, Manager of the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
However, rollout is imminent for a feature that will validate the addresses on license application before submission to BIS to alleviate these concerns. A button will be added to the SNAP-R form to validate the address. If the address is wrong or not included in BIS’ system, or if the service is temporarily not available, users will be able to certify that the address is correct (to the best of their knowledge) by checking a box, and bypass the verification process.
Single Platform for Interagency License Review Coming in Fall 2012
The panel also discussed the migration of the agency licensing “back-end” side of the licensing application process to the USXPORTS platform, which will be shared with the State Department and the Department of Defense, among other agencies. Che-Mponda said this move will improve agency cooperation and give exporters quicker answers to the their license applications by improving the process of interagency review of licenses. USXPORTS will replace a mainframe-based system that has been in place since the early 1980s, he said, and the migration will take place in fall 2012.
in response to several comments that the application form in SNAP-R does not provide enough space for complete company names and addresses, BIS said it intends to address this issue after the roll-out of USXPORTS, due to the new platform’s ability to accept longer string lengths.
BIS Eventually Hopes for Single Registration, Submission Platform for State & BIS Licenses
Eventually, BIS hopes to implement online submission of Form 621P (anti-boycott); create a single registration for applicants for State and BIS license; and, in the long term, create a single submission platform for license applications, the officials said. However, they said, these projects are long term and have not yet been vetted.