WCO Technology Conference

Guillaume Sannié, CEA                    Michael Doherty, MD CBSS

We were delighted to have been invited to present the ENTRANCE project in a dedicated session during the WCO Technology Conference on 19 October in Maastricht. Project coordinator, Guillaume Sannié of CEA, and project partner Michael Doherty of MD CMSS and formerly the Irish Customs, delivered an excellent presentation giving a clear overview of the objectives and anticipated results of ENTRANCE. First showing an infographic video, which identifies in simple terms the objectives and anticipated results of the project, they then went on to explain in a bit more detail the different technological strands that are being developed in this European H2020 research project. Expanding on the work in the previous C-BORD project, ENTRANCE began its own life in October 2020 and runs until the end of September 2023.

Further details can be found at www.entrance-h2020.eu/.

The WCO Technology Conference is perhaps the primary event in the calendar for customs officials around the world and this year's event was well attended with many very positive reports being heard. You can read all about the three days of plenary and breakout sessions on the conference website. Guillaume and Michael were two of the presenters in Session B3 'Reshaping Customs operations with new technologies'. The session was moderated by Ozlem Soysanli, Technical Officer, Procedures and Facilitation, WCO, they were joined by the other speakers Robert Bos, Deputy General Manager of Nuctech Netherlands and Geoff Clelland, Sales Director, GScan.

2021 has highlighted the critical role that Customs play in enabling global trade. To make the global supply chains of the future more efficient, Smart Customs have to minimise Customs clearance time and costs, while intelligently managing inbound and outbound goods and vehicles. Customs administrations worldwide aim at deploying technological solutions that save time and resources and assist them in performing their functions effectively.

ENTRANCE plays an important role in this challenge, as we are developing a range of technologies to support customs' authorities in their daily battle to control cross border transport of illegal goods and dangerous weapons. The team is focussing on developing, implementing and testing through field trials a comprehensive user-based Toolbox for risk-based non-intrusive inspection of cross-border freight movements. These include the control of maritime containers at ports, vehicles of all types at land borders and freight trains.