BIS Gives Industry the Finger

BIS published a Final Rule amending the EAR to capture revisions based upon its systematic review of the Commerce Control List (CCL). Among the changes is an addition of a note to ECCN 4A980 stating that the ECCN "does not control equipment limited to one finger and designed for user authentication or access control." This minor change signals a willingness of BIS to take some additional steps toward liberalizing the tight controls on US-origin biometric identification equipment, software, and technology, which, under ECCNs 3A981, 3D980, 3E980, 4A980, 4D980, and 4E980 are controlled for reasons of Crime Control (CC) in accordance with the EAR's 742.7 and require an export license for most instances of export due to the special restrictions on CC at 740.2(a)(4). By virtue of this latest amendment, international travelers will be permitted to carry laptops employing basic fingerprint authentication without having to obtain a license for the biometric security device, which serves to enhance the safeguarding of any US-origin data and technology on the laptop.

More than a dozen ECCNs have been affected by the rule. I'll not attempt to recite (or even summarize) all of the changes - especially since I won't be able to make heads or tails of some of them until I see them incorporated into the EAR. The other changes I found to be worthy of noting include:

• A definition of the term "alloy" in a new Technical Note 2 to ECCN 2B350. For the purposes of this ECCN, "metal alloys... are those containing a higher percentage by weight of the stated metal than of any other element."
• For ECCN 4A101, the phrase "radiation hardened" has been defined as meaning "that the component or equipment is designed or rated to withstand radiation levels which meet or exceed a total irradiation dose of 5 X 10^5 rads (Si)."

There's just something really special about definitions of terms to which I'm particularly drawn. Stay tuned on that note.