July 14, 2016

Understanding ITAR Compliant File Sharing & Transfer

ITAR stands for the "International Traffic in Arms Regulations." It's a set of regulations created by the United States government that exert control over how defense-related articles and services on the US Munitions List (USML), as well as related technical data, are imported and exported. In essence, it dictates that any items listed on the USML can only be shared with United States citizens, unless special authorization or exemptions have been previously created.

When you're talking about picking up a paper folder with a document inside and walking it down to someone's office, ITAR compliance is pretty easy to maintain. However, what happens when you're talking about ITAR compliant Internet file transfer? What if you need to share a document with someone halfway around the world over the Internet -- or prevent it? What happens then?

What You Need to Know to About ITAR Compliant File Transfer

Who Needs to Worry About ITAR Compliance?

Any company that does business with the United States military, along with any organization that deals with information related to items, services or other information on the United States Munitions List, must always make ITAR compliance a number one priority. This doesn't just include government and military organizations but also includes the third party contractors that work with them.

ITAR Compliant FTP Sites

One of the key things for you to understand is that by law, FTP providers are NOT considered to be an "exporter of data" the same way your organization might be. This means that the burden of maintaining ITAR compliance does NOT fall with your provider, and instead rests with the people within your organization. Despite this, one FTP provider has included a number of advanced features that allow you to maintain an ITAR compliant file transfer process across the board. That provider is Sharetru. No other FTP provider does this, so you'll always want to look for a few key features before you make a decision of who to do business with.

The most important step that an FTP provider can take to help you and your organization maintain ITAR compliance involves making sure that data stored on an FTP site is NOT accidentally distributed to foreign persons or people from foreign nations. Sharetru maintains 100% of its FTP cloud services in a Louisville, Kentucky data center manned only by U.S. citizens. Any customers that require ITAR compliance can therefore be assured that anything on the USML is always managed and maintained by United States citizens at all times.

ITAR compliant FTP providers should also provide customers with a country blocker, that allows them to technologically deny access to the site from any country in the world except the United States (again, unless certain authorizations or exemptions are in place). This helps make sure that they both remain ITAR compliant and that accidentally sending the wrong information to the wrong person isn't something they have to concern themselves with at all.