International Traffic in Arms Regulations – ITAR
Safety and privacy are two words you will be familiar with at any moment in your life, and this includes your personal issues as well as business-related ones. If you live in the United States, you will notice the relevance people—and the government itself—pay to safeguard information, items, and several things you might not be familiar with. For this, you will find several regulations, standards, normative, and rules companies, and you as a citizen have to follow to guarantee the security of the country and its policies.
Of course, the development and creation of regulations are carried out by the government itself. Therefore, your role in all this is to educate yourself, your company overall, and make sure you meet the requirements and parameters established in each one of them. This takes us to the ITAR, which is a U.S. regulation designed to protect and safeguard military technology from specific countries.
Since it is a regulation that can be hard to understand when you are not familiar with the area this is aiming for—or you are just starting to learn about it—, we want to make its explanation simple. ITAR protects all the military-related technologies by controlling their export and import with several countries and establishing requirements to share them with others. In this way, the United States isn’t compromised and is able to maintain its national security and policy objectives or goals.
This includes both services and articles that include relevant information and any technology that can be compromised for the country. Most companies that need to get familiar with this regulation find it “useless” at the beginning.
After all, controlling the export and import of some items is illogical—according to some people. However, there needs to be a standard and control over the objects or services a company provides, especially when it is related to military technology or any item that can represent the same relevance.
This is something you will notice the more you dive into all the information and document with the requirements and restrictions of the regulation. Now, which items and technologies—even services—are included in this regulatory standard or document?
Anything in the USML, which goes for the United States Munitions List, is protected and regulated for ITAR. Therefore, any company in this industry or to be more specific, area of expertise, needs to be ITAR compliant.
Otherwise, it will be exposed to demands and law problems due to the missing standard and certification in this aspect. When you follow ITAR and all the regulations in the document, you will get a seal of approval that will show the government and your clients that you follow the right standards.
In this area or industry, it is one of the most important aspects to deal with and get your hands in. But for this, how can you do it?
Following ITAR for your business
When we mentioned that every company in the area needs to be ITAR compliant, we were including manufacturers, suppliers, exporters, and anyone in the supply chain or providing defense services. There is also a long list of companies that need to meet the requirements in this standard. However, it is usually related or implemented in manufacturing companies and direct exporters due to the nature and main goal of the normative.
But it is important to follow in every company. Therefore, if you are here interested in what ITAR is, its implementation, and making sure your company meets everything, you have to pay attention to it even if you are not a manufacturer or exporter. As long as you participate in the manufacturing, sale, or distribution process directly or indirectly, and the services or goods are in the USML, you need to have your certification.
Now, going back to the last question, you will need a validated company or organization that can assess or evaluate your company to determine if you follow and meet the regulations. For this, ISO Pros is available and waiting to know about your regulation and standard needs to assist you with our qualified and experienced auditors and experts. Being someone that meets all the requirements and is ITAR compliant also involves several processes, such as being registered with the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls.
Usually, companies that are looking to be a supplier of the USML prime exporter need to prioritize this task the most. And we are talking about being registered in DDTC, but the entire procedure of ITAR is also at the top of the list as the final result or main goal in all this matter. Our company can help you to handle all these aspects and support you when needing to determine the right strategy to approach the regulatory regime.
Do you need to register with the DDTC only?
There are several elements and steps involved in being certified in ITAR. One of them is to get your registration done and continue following the regulation word by word. This will take a lot of understanding and time, but one of the things you need to worry about is to be able to not break any part of the regulation.
Companies that get certified or familiar with this normative believe they only need the seal of approval and worry about anything later on. However, violating ITAR leads to several problems that go from leading your company to bankruptcy or penalties of thousands of dollars that not all businesses can afford. Besides, the penalties aren’t low, and we are sure you don’t want to violate the regulation by just thinking about the money and later on, adding the other consequences of the action.
Therefore, more than just reading a document and understanding it, or hiring someone who can get everything done for you to get certified, invest time in getting trained as well. At ISO Pros, we provide the certifications in ISOs and normative or regulations just like this one. But part of our duty and services is to help you get everything done while you learn and get training for your future.
In this way, the probabilities or violating the regulation will be almost none or impossible for you and the entire company. To get more information about our training option or service, you just need to contact us via the phone number, email, or contact form we have for you.
ITAR also comes with data to protect
The objective of this regulation is to protect and safeguard not only the technologies related to the military area but also all the data included with them. Therefore, part of the main objective is to protect the data you collect with ITAR and make sure your clients nor anyone else can have access to it.
But how can you make this possible without compromising anything during your operations?
Most companies miss some details and aspects in the contract and mostly, in their security policy. This leads us to tell you one thing: you need to take your time to maintain an information security policy and a general or specific one for every area and aspect of your company. This is the only way—or the most effective one—to protect the ITAR collected-data and avoid issues or misunderstandings in the future.
To this takes or goal, the options and methods such as:
- Building and maintain a secure network by installing all the pertinent aspects, elements, and options.
- For every person that has access to a computer or the data itself, make sure to provide a different ID to avoid any mixed information or make the task of accessing it easy for others.
- Carry out a periodical test and evaluation to determine if your company’s security system is meeting its purpose or if it needs some reinforcement and additions.
- Encryption will be your best friend in several situations, this one included at the top of the list.
- Have your control measures for anyone that needs to access the information and to avoid anyone who isn’t authorized to do it.
- Is your data safe from getting lost? You also need a preventing option and measure to avoid this or have a copy of all the data if it happens.
All this plays an important role in the entire ITAR and how it is related to your company. We are aware that it is a lot to process and believe or not, many companies that have reached out to us—or the people thinking about being involved in this area—have decided to not continue with it due to the difficulty.
But we don’t consider it difficult but rather tedious and even annoying. However, we understand it is quite necessary and we agree for it being a mandatory and formal regulation.
Is it difficult to get familiar with ITAR?
It is not unless you are not familiar with the regulatory framework of export law of the United States beforehand. Many people decide to jump or skip the basic or main information about the options they are going for. This includes the framework that includes all the laws established for exporting and even manufacturing processes.
Although ITAR protects or is aiming for the export of the technology and services we have mentioned before, it is also necessary for you to go through every other aspect of your company beforehand. What we are trying to say is that if you have a company or business that is aiming for export, you sure need to know about this. However, dedicating time to know about the general laws and also, the ones related to the other goals and purposes of your company such as manufacturing, sales, or anything else, are important.
So, make sure to go through all this data and information before jumping to ITAR, or you won’t understand what it is all about and you will only go back to the beginning. After all, you can progress in getting a certification in this regulatory regime unless you have obtained other certifications or dealt with different aspects. For this, we have made sure to have complete assistance, support, and consulting services.
Our company can help you according to your needs and level of expertise in the area you are dealing with. Therefore, even when the main objective will be to follow ITAR, avoid its violation, and get certified, we can help you with the aspects and areas that come before it. We have qualified experts that won’t disappoint, and if you need to access more information, we would love to provide it to you before deciding if you will hire our services or not.
Or get certified by our company. Also, we have extra information and details on our website that we are sure you will value from now on.