The WCO Technical Experts Group on Non-Intrusive Inspection (TEG-NII) held its 11th Meeting on 30 September and 1 October 2024 in a hybrid format. The Meeting gathered, both online and at WCO headquarters in Brussels, over 200 participants from 75 Member Customs administrations and 14 NII vendors, system integrators and stakeholders.
In his opening remarks, the WCO Deputy Director in charge of the Procedures and Facilitation Sub-Directorate, Brendan O’Hearn, highlighted the relevance of the work of the TEG-NII in contributing to the WCO efforts aimed at harnessing the power of technology and fostering innovation.
The TEG-NII discussions centered around two main topics – the Unified File Format (UFF) Development Programme and other NII-related matters.
The TEG-NII examined and endorsed a draft technical specification for a new major version of the WCO-sponsored NII data format, namely UFF 3.0.0. The proposed changes aim to enhance material discrimination capabilities for lower energy systems, ensure better system metadata, incorporate provisions on data from Radiation Portal Monitors, as well as on additional data to support machine learning algorithms. Following the endorsement by the TEG-NII, the draft UFF 3.0.0 Technical Specification will be submitted to the 30th Meeting of the SAFE Working Group in November 2024 for review and endorsement.
At its 11th Meeting the TEG-NII provided input for a changeover strategy that is required by the UFF Maintenance Procedure, as the changes introduced through the UFF 3.0.0 Technical Specification constitute a major release of the standard. The future changeover strategy foresees publishing the UFF 3.0.0 Technical Specification already in December 2024, as an interim/provisional standard and includes recommendations with regard to the promotion and implementation of the new version of the standard.
In the domain of governance matters, the TEG-NII considered requests by CGN BEGOOD Technology Co. Ltd., MultiControl Sp. Z O.O. and Varex Imaging, and decided to grant member status in the TEG-NII to CGN BEGOOD Technology and Varex Imaging, and observer status with the Group to MultiControl.
Furthermore, the TEG-NII followed up on the discussions held in its 9th and 10th Meetings on the practical aspects of the sharing by Members of X-ray/CT images as mandated by the WCO Data Strategy. The TEG-NII was provided with a progress report on the work of the WCO Working Group on Data and Statistics, and discussed the practices and insights provided by the Netherlands, Australia and Kenya with regard to bilateral sharing of X-ray/CT images.
The TEG-NII took note of the progress in the implementation of the TEG-NII Work Programme 2022 – 2025, which the Group had endorsed during its 9th Meeting. Under a dedicated agenda item, the Group considered and endorsed updates to the WCO Guidelines for the Procurement and Deployment of Scanning/NII Equipment (NII Guidelines), a key tool for assisting Member administrations with the procurement and operation of scanning equipment. The updates cover factory acceptance testing, various aspects of NII equipment maintenance, donations of used high-energy scanners, and information on Computed Tomography (CT) scanners. The TEG-NII also provided guidance for future updates to the tool.
In a panel discussion, various NII industry representatives explored successful strategies for integrating NII systems with Customs automated clearance systems and provided advice to Member Customs administration on avoiding common pitfalls in this process.
Moreover, based on presentations by China, CargoSeer, Decision Sciences Inc., the United States, Rapiscan and Belgium the TEG-NII discussed various NII-related matters such as the deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the NII domain, detection technology based on muography, NII systems security, cyber security and data integrity, and defining NII Image Quality Indicators and test protocols for NII systems’ performance.
Similar to previous meetings, the 11th TEG-NII Meeting provided a forum for an open discussion between Customs and NII industry on challenges and potential solutions in the NII domain.
As the TEG-NII Customs Co-Chairperson, Joris Groeneveld, will be retiring from Dutch Customs in the coming months, the TEG-NII and the Secretariat extended their heartfelt gratitude to him for spearheading the UFF development initiative for the past nine years. The TEG-NII elected George Acres from the United States Customs and Border Protection as the next Customs Co-Chairperson of the Group.