The DoD designed the Golden Sentry End‑Use Monitoring program to meet the intent of the Arms Export Control Act to ensure that foreign nations use U.S. defense articles in accordance with the terms and conditions of respective transfer agreements or other applicable agreements. The DoD designates certain defense articles as requiring enhanced end‑use monitoring (EEUM), which includes physical security inspections of the facilities storing them, along with initial and annual serial number inventories of all defense articles.
Since 2022, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency has authorized the Office of Defense Cooperation–Ukraine (ODC‑Ukraine) and the Ukrainian Armed Forces to use handheld barcode scanners to conduct serial number inventories of EEUM‑designated defense articles. During our evaluation to determine the extent to which the DoD conducts EEUM of designated defense articles provided to Ukraine in accordance with DoD policy, ODC‑Ukraine and security cooperation organization (SCO) personnel told us that the barcode scanners can be a useful tool, especially in peacetime and in climate‑controlled environments. However, during the evaluation, ODC‑Ukraine and SCO personnel also identified ongoing challenges operating the barcode scanners for EEUM defense article inventories.
The challenges occurred because some scans were inaccurate, some barcodes were illegible or missing, the scanners did not function well in adverse weather, and scanners were prohibited in some secure storage sites. However, according to 11 of 13 SCOs we interviewed, the use of handheld barcode scanners could improve efficiency compared to traditional EEUM processes and procedures because the scanners could save time and increase the speed of inventories.