RESEARCH

EAR Exercise

Scenario a Louisiana Tech faculty member is planning to attend a conference in Australia and would like to take his MacBook computer. The first step in determining if this is allowable is to determine the ECCN of the MacBook. Some companies like Apple assist in this process by listing the ECCN designations of their products. According to the Apple website the MacBook has an ECCN designation of “5A992.c.” Since it does not fall within the low-tech, consumer EAR99 designation further investigation is warranted.

Breakdown of the “5A992.c” designation:

5 – Category
A – Product Group
9 – Reason for Control
9 – Relates to Reasons for Control
2 – Used for Numerical Ordering

Ten Categories in the CCL

0 – Nuclear & Miscellaneous
1 – Materials, Chemicals, Microorganisms & Toxins
2 – Materials Processing
3 – Electronics
4 – Computers
5 Part 1 – Telecommunications
5 Part 2 – Information Security
6 – Sensors and Lasers
7 – Navigation and Avionics
8 – Marine
9 – Aerospace & Propulsion Systems

Product Groups

A – Systems, Equipment & Components
B – Test, Inspection and production Equipment
C – Material
D – Software
E – Technology

By clicking on “Category 5 Part 2 – Information Security” link found on the BIS CCL index below opens a pdf document.

The contents of 5A992 part c can be found on Page 6 of the pdf document, see below.

This section provides the reason for the controls, “AT,” which stands for Anti-Terrorism as well as a description of the controlled technology, “encryption.” Because the MacBook contains encryption software it is subject to controls.  

Reason for Controls

AT – Anti-Terrorism
CB – Chemical & Biological weapons
CC – Crime Control
CW – Chemical Weapons Convention
EI – Encryption Item
FC – Firearms Control
MT – Missile Technology
NP – Nuclear Proliferation
NS – National Security
RS – Regional Stability
SI – Significant Item
SS – Short Supply
UN – United Nations
SL – Surreptitious Listening

To determine if it would be a violation of EAR to bring this item to Australia one would next need to consult the Commerce Country Chart. This chart can be accessed by clicking the following link: As can be seen from the chart below the column under AT is not check-off along the Australia row indicating that it is permissible to bring this item to that country.