U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security Moves to Protect Autonomous Vehicle Software
Posted on 01/07/2020
On January 6, 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, which is under the Commerce Department, made an interim final rule that, according to the summary, “amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to make certain items subject to the EAR and to impose a license requirement for the export and reexport of those items to all destinations, except Canada. Specifically, this rule classifies software specially designed to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery, as specified, under the Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) 0Y521 series, specifically under ECCN 0D521. BIS adds this item to the 0Y521 series of ECCNs upon a determination by the Department of Commerce, with the concurrence of the Departments of Defense and State, and other agencies as appropriate, that the items warrant control for export because the items may provide a significant military or intelligence advantage to the United States or because foreign policy reasons justify control, pursuant to the ECCN 0Y521 series procedures.”
Under these rules, all self-driving vehicle software that uses point clouds, trains a neural network, normalizes images, matches images with the neural network, are banned from export from the United States without a license, except for Canada. This measure would impact companies such as Tesla and Rivian, who are trying to build autonomous vehicles.