Promoting the Integrity and Security of Telecommunications Certification Bodies, Measurement Facilities, and the Equipment Authorization Program

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 2 and 15</CFR> <DEPDOC>[ET Docket No. 24-136; FCC 25-27; FR ID 305703]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Promoting the Integrity and Security of Telecommunications Certification Bodies, Measurement Facilities, and the Equipment Authorization Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) requires all recognized telecommunication certification bodies (TCBs), test labs, and laboratory accreditation bodies to certify to the Commission that they are not owned by, controlled by, or subject to the direction of a prohibited entity and to report all equity or voting interests of 5% or greater by any entity. The FCC also amends it rules to state that it will not recognize—and will revoke any existing recognition of—any TCB, test lab, or laboratory accreditation body that fails to provide, or that provides a false or inaccurate, certification; or that fails to provide, or provides false or inaccurate, information regarding equity or voting interests of 5% or greater. The FCC prohibits recognition of any TCB, test lab, or laboratory accreditation body owned by, controlled by, or subject to the direction of a prohibited entity, and prohibits such TCBs, test labs, and laboratory accreditation bodies from participating in the Commission's equipment authorization program, not only with regard to the equipment certification process but also the Supplier's Declaration of Conformity (SDoC) process. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective September 8, 2025, except for amendatory instructions 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, and 24 which are delayed indefinitely. The Federal Communications Commission will publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing the effective date. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in the rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of September 8, 2025. The incorporation by reference of certain other material listed in the rule was approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of October 30, 2023. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jamie Coleman of the Office of Engineering and Technology, at <E T="03">Jamie.Coleman@fcc.gov</E> or 202-418-2705. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Report and Order ( <E T="03">Report and Order</E> ), in ET Docket No. 24-136, FCC 25-27, adopted on May 22, 2025, and released on May 27, 2025. The full text of this document is available for public inspection and can be downloaded at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-27A1.pdf.</E> Alternative formats are available for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format) by sending an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or calling the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). <E T="03">Regulatory Flexibility Act.</E> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice-and-comment rulemaking, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) concerning the possible impact of the rule and policy changes contained in the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> on small entities. The FRFA is set forth in Appendix C of the <E T="03">Report and Order.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document contains proposed new or modified information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on any information collection requirements contained in this document. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we seek specific comment on how we might “further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees.” <E T="03">Congressional Review Act.</E> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that this rule is “non-major” under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of this Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Introduction</HD> The Commission adopts new rules to help ensure that the telecommunication certification bodies (TCBs), measurement facilities (test labs), and laboratory accreditation bodies that participate in the FCC's equipment authorization program are not subject to ownership, direction, or control by untrustworthy actors that pose a risk to national security. The Commission previously established new equipment authorization program rules that prohibit authorization of specified equipment determined to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons. It is incumbent on TCBs and test labs, to which certain functions of the certification process—including the receipt and maintenance of sensitive and proprietary information regarding communications equipment—have been entrusted, to be vigilant and to promote the integrity of the FCC's authorization procedures to help protect our nation's supply chain against such unacceptable risk. In light of these responsibilities and ongoing security risks, the Commission strengthens its oversight of TCBs, test labs, and laboratory accreditation bodies by adopting new rules that will help ensure the integrity of these entities for purposes of the FCC's equipment authorization program, promote national security, and advance the Commission's comprehensive strategy to build a more secure and resilient communications supply chain. The Commission finds that it is critical for national security and the integrity of the supply chain that it prohibit from recognition or participation in the equipment authorization program TCBs, test labs, and laboratory accreditation bodies that are owned by, controlled by, or subject to the direction of a prohibited entity. In defining the scope of the term “prohibited entity,” the Commission relies on federal government agency determinations identifying entities that pose national security threats. For purposes of the <E T="03">Order,</E> the term “prohibited entity” means any of the following: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Entities identified on the FCC's Covered List;</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Entities identified by any of the following sources:</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">• Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List;</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">• BIS Military End-User List;</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">• Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List;</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">• Section 5949 of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 (Section 5949 List of Semiconductor Companies);</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">• Department of Defense (DOD) 1260H list of Chinese Military Companies (1260H List);</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">• Department of Treasury NS-CMIC List of Chinese military companies (NS-CMIC List); and</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Entities identified as “foreign adversaries” by the Department of Commerce.</FP> The Commission will deem a TCB, test lab, or laboratory accreditation body as “owned by” a prohibited entity when any such prohibited entity, has, possesses, or otherwise controls an equity or voting interest of 10% or more in the relevant TCB, test lab, or laboratory accreditation body. The Commission also provides further clarity on what it means for a TCB, test lab, or laboratory accreditation body to be controlled by or subject to the direction of a prohibited entity. To help ensure that the Commission has the necessary information to enforce this prohibition, the FCC expands its current reporting and certification requirements. The Commission adopts a requirement for all recognized TCBs, test labs, and laboratory accreditation bodies to certify to the FCC, within 30 days after the effective date of the rules, and thereafter with the request for recognition, that they are not owned by, controlled by, or subject to the direction of a prohibited entity. The Commission also adopts a requirement for all recognized TCBs, test labs, and laboratory accreditation bodies to report, within 90 days after the effective date of the rules, and thereafter with the request for recognition, all equity or voting interests of 5% or greater by any entity. The Commission also amends its rules to state that it will not recognize—and will revoke any existing recognition of—any TCB, test lab, or laboratory accreditation body that fails to provide, or that provides a false or inaccurate, certification; or that fails to provide, or provides false or inaccurate, information regarding equity or voting interests of 5% or greater. In keeping with the new reporting requirements, the Commission also clarifies the requirement that every entity specifically named on the Covered List must provide to the Commission, pursuant to § 2.903(b), information regarding all of its subsidiaries and affi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 192k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━