21st Century Declarations

The IAEA receives and manages information declared by States, as prescribed by the relevant safeguards agreements, and, together with all other safeguards-relevant information, evaluates it as part of the process supporting safeguards implementation. Within the Division of Information Management (SGIM), the Section for State Declared Information Analysis (ISD) plays a key role in the processing of State declared information - from the transmission of information to the Agency to its ultimate use in the context of the State evaluation process and the drawing of safeguards conclusions. SGIM-ISD handles an increasing variety and volume of these Member State declarations. While the volume of submissions has grown, the submission methods have not kept pace with either the number or the available technology. The paper and supporting presentation will provide an overview of the variety of declarations and transmission methods. The current paradigm and transmission paths between the State authorities and Agency will be evaluated. It will also lay out a future paradigm and desired features of a next generation system. As the Department of Safeguards is currently re-engineering its information technology infrastructure, the future paradigm will be placed within the context of these changes. (author)