Spire Global Unveils
Solution for Dark Shipping Detection
November 07, 2022
Spire Global, Inc. unveiled a
dark shipping detection solution to track vessels
that manipulate their reported position in order to
conceal nefarious activities.
The Automatic Identification
System (AIS) on a vessel helps avoid collisions at
sea, track global shipping trends and monitor
individual vessel activity; but crew members on
board can manipulate the system by turning off the
transponder to go dark or ‘spoofing’ the AIS to
report false positions. Typically, this is done in
order to hide activity that is illegal or could have
negative consequences to the ship owner, such as
illegal trading, loading or unloading sanctioned
goods, or illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)
fishing.
Spire’s near real-time, global
geolocation position validation service can uncover
suspicious activity and pinpoint a vessel without
the need for an approximate location. The
applications are critical to governments,
intelligence and security agencies, and nonprofit
organizations’ efforts to identify and locate
vessels that are breaking international law.
“For a long time, having the
tools to accurately identify and track ships that
are attempting to hide their activities or location
has been the missing key to preventing sanctions
evasion, illegal fishing, human trafficking and many
more pressing societal issues,” said Peter Mabson,
CEO, Spire Maritime. “Dark shipping detection builds
on our breadth of maritime tracking solutions and
underscores Spire’s mission to use data that can
only be collected from space to improve life on
Earth.”
Spire operates the world’s
largest multipurpose constellation with more than
100 satellites. The company plans to launch
additional products in 2023 for geolocation and
identification of dark targets, at sea, on land, and
in the air. Learn more at
https://insights.spire.com/maritime/dark-shipping-detection.
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