82. The representative of Germany, on behalf of the IWG on DETA presented the status report (WP.29-178-22) of the activities of the group, and the report of the last session (WP.29-178-23). He informed WP.29 that DETA was operational for the exchange of type approval documentation and that 16 contracting parties already had notified [Germany of] their DETA focal point. He explained that DETA was still being developed to include the Unique Identifier (UI) and the Declaration of Conformance (DoC) functionalities. He presented the expected timeline for their implementation. He invited WP.29 to consider for endorsement the specifications of UI (WP.29-178-26/Rev.1) and DoC (WP.29-178-25). He recommended that WP.29 invite GRs, in the context of UI, to consider whether current additional marking provisions were still to be considered part of the approval marking and could be replaced by the UI marking, or these additional markings have an information character and could be provided by alternative means (e.g. insertion in the Communication Form). WP.29 agreed with this suggestion. This was necessary as the current version of the software was not able to render all marking variations

83. The secretariat insisted on the need to review the specifications of the DETA software extensions (delivering UI and DoC) as these would be the basis for developing these functions and as future amendments to them could have financial implications. He added that IWG was informed of difficulties for the involved parties, software house and sponsors, to establish contracts because contractual clauses would involve parties not being signatories of the contact (e.g. the DETA host).