USCG/CBP Joint ACE M1 Pilot Article - July 2012 (doc - 797 KB.) 08/07/2012 The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) announce the successful operational testing of the Automated Commercial Environment Rail and Manifest (ACE M1) system.

Report to Congress December 2011 (pdf - 375 KB.) 03/08/2012 Section 405 of the “Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-347, October 13, 2006) (Safe Port Act) requires the Secretary of the Treasury to oversee an interagency initiative to establish a “single portal system” to be know as the International Trade Data System (ITDS) and to be operated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This report includes information on the: 1) status of ITDS implementation; 2) extent of participation in ITDS by other Federal agencies; 3) remaining barriers to any agencies participation; 4) consistency with the WCO; 5) recommendations for technological and other improvements to the ITDS; and 6) status of development, implementation and management of ACE within CBP.

2011 ITDS Report to Congress (pdf - 375 KB.) 02/08/2012

ITDS PIC Business Case Report Released for Trade Comment (pdf - 1,254 KB.) 02/08/2011 The ITDS Product Information Committee (PIC) has released for general distribution its most recent report titled “The Business Case for Using E-Commerce Data to Manage Product Admission at International Borders”. This report examines three product sets to estimate the costs and benefits of using globally unique product identification and global product classification codes to create a more efficient product import and export process. Comments and questions received from industry during the comment period have been summarized and included in the report as Appendix I. Additional comments and questions are always welcome and can be sent by email to the PIC Chairman, Douglas Bailey at douglas.bailey@ams.usda.gov.

PIC Business Case Report (pdf - 1,295 KB.) 9/27/2011

December 2010 ITDS Report to Congress (pdf - 702 KB.) 02/25/2011 Section 405 of the “Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-347, October 13, 2006) (Safe Port Act) requires the Secretary of the Treasury to oversee an interagency initiative to establish a “single portal system” to be know as the International Trade Data System (ITDS) and to be operated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This report includes information on the: 1) status of ITDS implementation; 2) extent of participation in ITDS by other Federal agencies; 3) remaining barriers to any agencies participation; 4) consistency with the WCO; 5) recommendations for technological and other improvements to the ITDS; and 6) status of development, implementation and management of ACE within CBP.

Final Product Information Code Guidance Report – December 2010 (pdf - 778 KB.) 12/23/2010 This report was prepared by the Product Information Code Subcommittee, ITDS Board of Directors. A draft copy of this report was distributed for trade consultation in October 2010. The purpose of this document is to ensure a clear and common understanding of a proposal developed by an interagency staff working on the International Trade Data System (ITDS) project to use commercial data standards to speed cargo entering the United States and help limit the amount of data traders are required to provide. It is proposed that products entering the United States will be reported to the Federal government using the currently required Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) number and optional e-commerce data, i.e., commercially available product identification and classification references. The ITDS Board of Directors has requested that CBP modify existing data transmission record sets to include all information contained in the ITDS Standard Data Set.

CBP and ITDS Concept of Operations – Public Version 1.3 September 2010 (pdf - 2,348 KB.) 11/08/2010 Attached is the public version of the CBP/ITDS ConOps. This document, the U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) International Trade Data System (ITDS) Concept of Operations (ConOps), was requested by the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Executive Steering Committee, to pave the way for future ACE funding and development. It was developed by a CBP Task Force Team under the auspices of the Office of International Trade (OT), and included members actively engaged from the Office of Administration (OA), Office of the Commissioner (OC), Office of Field Operations (OFO), Office of Information and Technology (OIT), and Office of Intelligence and Operations Coordination (OIOC). Members of the Trade and representatives of Participating Government Agencies (PGAs) were invited to participate in several review sessions to capture their input and include them in the ConOps process.

CBP ITDS Gap Analysis of ConOps – Executive Summary (doc - 60 KB.) 08/17/2010

Notice to all PGA ACE Portal Users 06/08/2010 It has been brought to our attention that the ACE Helpdesk (Technical Support Center [TSC] 1-800-927-8729M) is having difficulty in identifying PGA users in order to reset their ACE passwords. The TSC staff is currently unable to display or locate valid PGA users in the ACE system user registry known as ITIM.

Technical Notice on JAVA - March 15, 2010 (Update) (pdf - 12 KB.) 03/15/2010 Prompted by a question from TTB, we have inquired further into the specific version of JAVA needed to support the use of ACE M-1 Functionality. ACE M1 will require JAVA version 1.6.17.

Leveraging E-Commerce Product Data for Smarter Cargo Management Summary Report (pdf - 1,277 KB.) 03/03/2010 The ITDS Board of Directors Product Information Committee presented a concept paper on recommendations for the use of “product information codes” to the ITDS Board of Directors. The report contains recommendations on ways to provide government agencies with more specific product classification information via ACE to make fast and accurate decisions about cargo admissibility at U.S. borders.

What is ITDS? ITDS is the program that assists Participating Government Agencies (PGAs) in identifying, documenting, and executing their plan to leverage ACE to improve business operations and further agency missions.ITDS’ overarching goal is the utilization of the concept commonly known as the Single Window. The Single Window will provide the trade with the ACE functionality through which they can electronically submit all information to comply with CBP and other government regulations. The information would then be assessed electronically by the relevant government departments and agencies, resulting in border-related decisions which would be transmitted electronically back to the trade.The ITDS strategy includes: enabling the development of PGA competence in using the ACE functionality built by CBP; assisting the PGAs with trade outreach so that the Trade understands its Single Window obligations to the PGAs; and representing PGA interests and requirements in future ACE developments for cargo release and exports. To be successful, ITDS needs the full cooperation and support of other components of CBP, PGAs, and the trade community. Full realization of the Single Window requires dedicated financial resources and may require legislative and regulatory changes to transition from paper documents to electronic submissions.To achieve these goals, ITDS is concentrating on: fostering the utilization of the PGA message set for imports through interactions with the PGAs and the trade; facilitating the inclusion of PGAs in the development of Cargo Release requirements; facilitating the PGAs in the harmonization of export data elements and documentation of export business process requirements; and managing the alignment of import and export data sets with the WCO data model and NIEM standards.

What is ACE? ACE automates and consolidates border processing and is the centralized access point that connects CBP, the trade community, and other government agencies.