By Justin Stares in Brussels- Monday July 31 2006

THE US-based World Shipping Council has hit out at what it says is an attempt by IT giant General Electric to promote its own container security product via a not-for-profit global standards organisation.

GE and commercial partners want to deviatefrom container security work which has taken place mover the last two years in the International Standards Organization (ISO), the shipping council claims.

In a stinging statement, the council, which represents liner companies operating to and from the US, says GE deliberately pulled out of an ISO process which could have led to the development of a rival container device.

GE and other IT companies last month launched the International Container Security Organisation (ICSO) in Brussels, a body they said would aim to produce security system standards encompassing modern seals and wireless communications that are so intelligentthe industry as a whole will adopt them.

General Electric and several other companies (including Siemens and Mitsubishi Corporation) with a financial interest in the promotion of the GE CommerceGuard container security device recently announced the creation of a new organization, the International Container Standards Organization, for the stated purpose of establishing global standardsfor container security devices.said the shipping council.

While there is nothing surprising about GE trying to promote and protect its own business interests, this is an unnecessary and counterproductive initiative that is inconsistent with the extensive efforts of international ocean carriers, terminal operators and technology developers at the International Standards Organization.

The council continued: It is also a strange coincidence that GE would undertake this initiative just as the ISO is about to finalise its years of efforts in developing a consensus international container security standard a standard that differs significantly from GEs product. The ICSO effort appears intended to deviate from the extensive work already done to date.

According to the council, GE explicitly declined to participatein part of the ISO process setting out operational requirements for a new container security device: Unlike other container security technologies, GE apparently wants to create own and control the global database of container readings done by its proprietary reader infrastructure. The commercial and financial interest in doing so is not a security requirement. Nor has it been accepted by container owners and users.

But when the ICSO was launched, executives said the security systems standards it decided to promote could not be seen to favour its memberstechnologies or the industry would not accept them.