The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday said it has been using an intelligent border prediction (IBP) system using artificial intelligence (AI) to select products for customs inspection since 2020.
The FDA said that the amount of imported food products has increased through years — from more than 400,000 batches imported in 2011 to more than 760,000 last year — but its workforce, budget and time for customs clearance are limited, so it introduced the IBP system in 2020.
Before the IBP system was introduced, inspectors would randomly select samples, FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu (林金富) said, adding that with AI assistance, the system can more accurately select samples for inspection.
Photo: Chiu Chih-rou, Taipei Times
Imported food products that have been reported for inspection would first go through the automated import food inspection system to determine if they are subject to batch-by-batch inspection, regular randomly selected batch inspection, or reinforced randomly selected batch inspection, FDA Northern Center inspector Ho Chia-hua (何佳樺) said.
The IBP system analyzes risk levels based on several factors, such as noncompliance records, the country of origin and international food safety alerts, and decide which batches should be inspected, Ho said.
Before the IBP system was introduced, the inspection rate of fresh fruit was about 6.7 percent, and the inspection failure rate was about 3 percent, she said, adding that after the system was introduced, the inspection rate could be reduced to 4.3 percent, with an increased failure rate of about 3.8 percent.
The use of AI enables more accurate prediction of noncompliant products and their interception at customs, she said.
The IBP system has not only improved inspection efficiency, but has also helped the agency save about NT$4 million (US$133,690) of its annual inspection budget, she added.
In addition to local data, the IBP system also integrates food safety data from 14 food safety systems of 13 countries, so it also takes into consideration real-time alerts and public data from other countries, Lin said.
The agency has three methods to block further noncompliant products, FDA Northern Center Director Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智) said, citing last year’s incident of chili pepper powder products with Sudan dyes as an example.
The importers were required to provide test reports proving no Sudan dyes were used, and AI was used to assist in selecting batches for inspection, while importers whose products had failed inspection were added to a list of enhanced monitoring, he said.
There are only 71 FDA inspectors conducting border inspections nationwide, but the Cabinet has announced it would allow the agency to recruit more people, and as a result 33 new inspectors would join the agency in September, Lin said.
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