GAO Criticizes CBP for Failing to Assess the Effectiveness of its Automated Targeting System
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has failed to adequately assess whether its automated targeting system (ATS) addresses security risks or whether some alternative system would be more effective, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report posted October 26. With 13.4 million cargo containers arriving in U.S. seaports in 2011, CBP’s ability to detect weapons of mass destruction, other weapons, smuggled people and illicit substances is critical, it said in a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
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In various laws passed since Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has sought to address concerns about the security of maritime containers in the global supply chain, the GAO said. In 2007, the 9/11 Act required, among other things, that by July 2012, 100% of U.S.-bound cargo containers be scanned at foreign ports with radiation detection and nonintrusive inspection equipment before being placed on U.S.-bound vessels. That deadline was extended to July 2014, but the feasibility of 100% scanning remains doubtful and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CBP haven't yet identified alternatives that could achieve the same goal, it said, so there's uncertainty about the scope of DHS's and CBP's existing container security programs and how they will collectively affect the movement of goods between trading partners, it said.
CBP's strategy for securing the maritime supply chain involves programs that intersect with key points in the chain, the report said. To help the process, CBP uses the ATS, which uses a set of weighted rules (maritime national security weight set) to Gage different factors in data provided by supply chain parties, such as importers, to determine the risk level for a shipment. CBP officers use ATS information to target which shipments should be held for inspection.
GAO analyzed how ATS supports CBP's process for targeting container shipment and to what extent CBP assesses the national security targeting rules in ATS. It found that although CBP recognizes the importance of and challenges to ensuring container security while enabling the flow of legitimate commerce, its efforts to assess the effectiveness of the weight set in identifying risky shipment “have been limited.” CBP has performance measures -- represented by the percentage of shipments targeted as high risk that contain a threat and the percentage of shipments targeted as high risk that don't --that allow it to determine the accuracy of the weight set, but didn't assess the weight set before updated it in early 2011, the report said.
“Assessing the potential effectiveness of alternative versions of the weight set prior to selecting one for implementation could help CBP make more informed decisions about future updates,” the GAO found. Doing so could also give CBP reasonable assurance that the version it opts for is the best of the alternatives and is more effective than the version in replaces, it said. In addition, since updating the set, CBP hasn't regularly monitored its performance to see if changes are needed, it said.
The GAO recommended that the CBP Commissioner ensure that future updates to the weight set are based on results of assessments that show that the chosen version is more effective than other options, including the existing version; and set targets for CBP performance measures to be used in gaging the effectiveness of the weight set on a regular basis. DHS agreed with the recommendations.