Platform and Data Updates

Following the official retirement of the ESA Copernicus Sentinel-1A satellite, our imagery data pipeline was temporarily affected but has now been fully restored with the new Copernicus Sentinel-1C and Sentinel-1D satellite data.

Platform users can now enable two-factor authentication, sign in with a passkey, and manage account details and email preferences from a new settings page.

(Updated on 20 August 2026) Global Fishing Watch has temporarily paused data updates for Canada, Ecuador and the EU registries due to integration failures caused by source changes.

Five new vessel registry data sources integrated to Vessel Viewer, expanding vessel information coverage for global fleets.

Global Fishing Watch has transitioned its unified AIS data service to Kpler.

We updated our Synthetic Aperture Radar data pipeline to address a recent technical issue in our processing infrastructure.

Near-real-time nighttime vessel detections from Skylight’s VIIRS model are now available in Global Fishing Watch platform, enabling improved monitoring of vessel activity at night.

Global Fishing Watch has launched an improved version — version 4 — of our automatic identification system (AIS), vessel identity, object detection and vessel monitoring system (VMS) data pipelines.

Access new wind and currents datasets and enhanced analysis of uploaded datasets.

13 global layers are now available on ArcGIS Online, enabling users to directly work with our datasets within ESRI’s platform services

A new enhanced public portal that tracks and visualizes vessels engaged in deep-sea mineral activities.

We’ve detected an issue with how automatic identification system (AIS) encounter events are generated.

Update integrates features from Carrier Vessel Portal directly into the Global Fishing Watch map.

The data source we use for our Sentinel 2 vessel detections and fixed Infrastructure datasets is experiencing an issue.

Events and vessel detections may show in our platform, but tracks are missing.

Our new optical satellite imagery detections layer delivers clearer views of vessels at sea, offering expanded coverage and unprecedented nearshore detail.

New API is designed to provide users with a method for efficiently accessing and downloading larger volumes of data.

Access to AIS vessel presence data is now available through the 4Wings API.

Updates allow the analysis of vessel activities in greater detail and more realistic apparent fishing effort estimates near ports.

A new Python package is available for interacting with Global Fishing Watch APIs.

New vessel identity information is now available in vessel profiles in Vessel Viewer.

Our static dataset now covers 2012-2024, with nearly 370 million hours of fishing activity.

New vessel group reports and port visit data are available in Vessel Viewer.

Updates to the marine manager portal include shared workspaces, new analysis features and more.

This release includes updates to underlying activity data, high-resolution maps and general platform improvements.

A new filterable reference layer shows points associated with oil, wind or other offshore activities.

Fixed infrastructure detections from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 are now available in the data download portal.

A new API allows users to visualize changes in fixed offshore infrastructure over time.

Updates to the data download portal include a new vessel detections dataset and SAR detection footprints.

Vessel detections from Sentinel-1 SAR are now available through our 4Wings API.

Errors in fishing effort and fishing event data have been fully resolved.

Vessel identity and activity insights are now available in Vessel Viewer and our APIs.

Access 12 new environmental datasets and enhanced visualization of uploaded datasets in Marine Manager.

SAR vessel and fixed infrastructure detections are now available in new layers.

Global Fishing Watch AIS data has been enhanced by the addition of Marine Traffic terrestrial receivers.

API updates include a new API that returns information from public registries and AIS.

Analyze and understand a vessel’s history pattern through new vessel profiles.

Quickly analyze fishing or vessel activity in any area or time range and access a new ProtectedSeas Navigator layer.

New APIs provide statistics about fishing effort and vessel events worldwide or for a custom region.

Older platform and data updates can be viewed here