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Vessel Viewer: Ensuring Data and Intelligence-Led Fisheries Monitoring and Management
- Published
Innovative vessel history and insights tool supports transparency and the global fight against illegal fishing
Overview
The ocean covers nearly 70 percent of the planet–14 million square kilometers–providing a huge challenge for monitoring activity and enforcing regulations across its vast expanse. That activity includes illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which accounts for up to $23 billion worth of seafood every year, or one in every five wild-caught fish.
These challenges led Global Fishing Watch, alongside our partner TMT, to develop a tool giving anyone with an internet connection access to current and historical activity of any ship at sea or in port. This tool, Vessel Viewer, empowers users with information to combat IUU fishing, while also promoting regional cooperation and data transparency.
Vessel Viewer provides innovative solutions to the maritime monitoring and surveillance sectors, including governments and industry stakeholders. Our goal is that this tool will bring us a significant step closer to achieving open knowledge access to all human activity at sea so the ocean and its resources can be managed sustainably.
Transparency is at the core of our work
We believe that transparency of human activity at sea is key to informing dynamic, data-driven decisions and providing a level of accountability that can be properly and efficiently enforced by all–even where resources may be limited. Vessel Viewer is designed according to this vision. The tool consolidates disparate data sources and illuminates critical vessel identity, activity and authorization information sourced from open public databases and registries. And because it is built on open data, Vessel Viewer is free to access, helping authorities, decision makers and other stakeholders overcome challenges around data availability.
Vessel Viewer allows users to:
Search over 100,000 vessels by name, IMO number, call sign, or maritime mobile service identity, commonly referred to as MMSI
Create custom vessel groups with automated analytics and insights
Rapidly assess a fishing vessel’s current and historical profile, identity, operations and risk
Share vessel profile links with peers
Access near real-time information with a 72-hour AIS delay
Download vessel tracks and save their analysis offline as reports
Incorporate crucial insights and highlight data gaps and risks to inform due diligence, risk assessment and operational planning
Integrate directly into existing platforms and systems through an API
Powered by leading-edge technology
Development of Vessel Viewer started with a simple but daunting goal: to automatically capture and process large, diverse datasets and offer results in a user-friendly interface. We accomplished this by tapping into best-in-class cloud computing and machine learning capabilities.
Vessel Viewer leverages our technological and analytical capabilities to process self-reported automatic information system (AIS) data to determine vessel activities and behaviors such as port visits, fishing activity, transshipments and even AIS disabling, which can be unlawful in some countries.
The tool then applies machine learning through a model that has been trained to recognize various pattern-based activities and cross-reference data points, including vessel identity data, to give users a comprehensive look at the ship’s identity, where it was and what it was doing, including historical data from as far back as 2012.
Case Study: Ghana
See how Ghanaian officials used Vessel Viewer to detect gaps in the AIS transmissions of a reefer headed to the port of Tema from Angolan waters. Learn more
How Vessel Viewer is Used
Ports: Supporting States in implementing effective port controls
Vessel Viewer was first piloted in November 2021 in a collaboration between Global Fishing Watch and TMT, two members of the Joint Analytical Cell, and four African countries requesting support on the implementation of the Advance Request for Port Entry process: a key component of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA). This pilot demonstrated how the tool can be used as part of a comprehensive regime to enhance fishing vessel monitoring and support States in implementing effective risk-based port controls.
“Vessel Viewer provides a wide range of information on vessels from multiple sources, which ensures access to complete and reliable vessel data to aid in conducting risk assessment in relation to processing advanced requests for port entry as well for vetting foreign fishing vessels for port access and potential registration.”
Seafood supply chains: Integrating data sources to enhance transparency
Global Fishing Watch extended the initial Vessel Viewer pilot to project partners FishWise, Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and the World Economic Forum’s Friends of Ocean Action in January 2022, which kicked off the Supply Chain Risk Project. This project assessed seafood supply chains and due diligence practices and worked to integrate disparate ocean data sources to develop new automated analytical capabilities and indicators to improve understanding of vessel identity and fishing activity risks.
Since then, Vessel Viewer has seen widespread uptake across the seafood industry sector with the recognition that access to robust vessel information can support supply chain actors in realizing the benefits of fully traceable supply chains and drive change through advocacy and enhanced data transparency. Actionable vessel insights empower supply chains to know their vessels, allowing them to avoid IUU fishing and improve awareness of labor vulnerabilities.
“Having detailed vessel insights allows for deeper supplier engagement and better-informed discussions between seafood companies and their suppliers. Streamlining risk assessments and supplementing existing processes with vessel-level insights, companies can transition from spending the majority of their resources on assessing risk to now directing efforts to address and action those risks via due diligence activities.”
Marine insurance: Harnessing data to inform vessel insurance decisions
In September 2022, new features and information sources were integrated into Vessel Viewer and pilot access was extended to new partners in collaboration with the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance and TMT. Over the next seven months, Vessel Viewer proved to be a powerful tool for underwriters, agents and brokers in the marine insurance and reinsurance industry: harnessing data to identify risks and information gaps and helping them determine whether to investigate and/or insure a vessel.
The success of these pilots across the public and private sectors led to a public release of Vessel Viewer in October 2023 and the tool is now open and freely available for use. TMT and Global Fishing Watch remain committed to improving the technology, data sources and analytical capabilities behind the platform to keep supporting global fisheries management well into the future.
“We see different providers of intelligence data related to different segments and shipping operations. Vessel Viewer is tailored for fishing operations using the experience of Global Fishing Watch and TMT to identify relevant triggers for suspicious fishing activities.”
Vessel licensing: Using vessel history to support due diligence in granting or renewing fishing licenses
Vessel Viewer is a valuable tool for conducting due diligence when evaluating fishing license applications and renewals. By providing access to historical data on vessel movements, authorizations and flag history, Vessel Viewer allows fisheries authorities to rapidly assess a vessel’s past activities, including authorization in regional fisheries management organization fishing zones, transshipment regulations and spatial boundaries. This data enables improved understanding of a vessel’s operational history, which is critical for informed licensing decisions.
This capability is particularly useful for vessels flagged in foreign countries or those with a history of flag changes where direct access to past operation records may be limited. Vessel Viewer helps close a loophole that allows bad actors to avoid penalties by re-flagging or moving between coastal States. By equipping authorities with insights and potential operational risks, the tool strengthens the licensing review process, ensuring that access to national fisheries is granted only to vessels with transparent and compliant histories.
How Vessel Viewer feeds its own success
Vessel Viewer is well on the way to fulfilling its promise of increased transparency and open access to vessel activity data at sea in near real-time. As the Ghana case shows, the tool is helping to detect IUU activity and giving authorities useful indications to examine vessel activities and prosecute those in violation of local and international rules. It is also helping to prevent and deter IUU fishing into the future.
New applications of the tool continue to provide insights and use cases to inform the design of new features and improve usability to better serve diverse needs, adding further value to the Global Fishing Watch platform, tools and data.
