IACC: Working together to connect the dots
Two years ago in these pages, in a piece titled “Small Parcels, Big Problems”, we highlighted a disturbing trend in the distribution of counterfeit goods, in the US and around the world.
Concurrent with the global expansion of e-commerce, a new model has emerged, eschewing large-scale shipments via ocean cargo in favour of international mail and express delivery consignments shipped “direct-to-consumer”.
The challenges presented by this evolution to rights holders and customs enforcement agencies in their efforts to target and seize illicit shipments are readily apparent.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processed approximately 11 million maritime containers in fiscal year 2017, along with another ten million containers entering at land ports by truck, and three million by rail. Air cargo shipments including international mail and express consignments accounted for more than ten times as many shipments—approximately 250 million in total.
As a result, enforcement resources are being stretched to their limits in an effort to efficiently facilitate legitimate commerce and to interdict the contraband goods. The tools necessary to address these concerns are already at our disposal, but a new, and more collaborative, approach is necessary to put them into action.
Using the data
Customs enforcement, whether by government bodies or the private sector, has long been driven by data. The names of individuals and companies, phone numbers, addresses, website urls, bank account numbers, countries of origin, ports of entry—data points like these are the building blocks of investigations.
The data can and should be aggregated, correlated, and mined to facilitate the identification and targeting of counterfeit shipments regardless of the goods’ mode of transport from the manufacturer to the consumer.
Although counterfeiters have found a degree of anonymity in recent years, and sought to minimise the impact of seizures by flooding ports with an ever-increasing volume of small packages, in doing so they may be unwittingly contributing to our ability to identify them.
Doing so, however, will require broad cooperation among enforcement agencies, rights holders, and all responsible participants in the e-commerce ecosystem.
The International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) has seen first-hand the impact of this sort of cross-sector sharing of information in its RogueBlock initiative with the credit card and payments sector, and in its IACC MarketSafe programme.
This collaboration must be extended to additional sectors including internet registrars and registries, online search and advertising providers, mail and express consignment providers, and shipping intermediaries such as customs brokers and freight forwarders.
With the enactment of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act two years ago, US Congress expressed its recognition of the inherent value of public-private partnerships in enforcement, and specifically the need for robust information-sharing between rights holders and customs personnel, with its reiteration of CBP’s authority to seek assistance from trademark and copyright owners in determining whether goods being imported violate another’s IP rights.
While that specific provision remains to be implemented, rights holders are hopeful that the enactment will put to rest a long-standing concern raised by CBP that its authority to share certain information is constrained until after a formal seizure has been effected.
Another provision of that same legislation, also still awaiting implementation, underscores the value of ensuring the accuracy of data available to customs.
