Maritime nations face common threats to safety and security

The territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of maritime nations serve as vital strategic assets for food, trade, transport and natural resources. Maritime safety and security are therefore key issues of concern for all maritime nations. From illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing to illicit goods smuggling, and from human trafficking to environmental damage, all maritime nations seek to monitor and address threats to safety and security in their territorial waters and EEZ.

Military and civilian organisations share responsibilities for monitoring and enforcement

Increasingly congested and, in some cases, contested, the marine space remains a potential hotbed for illicit and illegal activity. New technology and investment in clean energy has led to more critical national infrastructure being located offshore. Climate change and population growth has led to a significant increase in illegal fishing and irregular migration across maritime borders. It is therefore essential that maritime nations have adequate surveillance of their marine spaces in place. By doing this, they will be equipped to detect and respond to threats in a timely and efficient way.

While no two maritime nations are the same, most monitor and enforce the threats to the integrity of their territorial waters and EEZ through a mix of defence and civil agencies. Amongst others, these include the Navy, Marine Police, Coastguard and Border Security which have responsibilities ranging from environmental and marine monitoring to counterterrorism and search and rescue as well as homeland security.

The challenge of cooperation and efficiency

While most maritime nations have existing maritime surveillance infrastructure, the high cost of legacy data platforms means this is often delivered only within specific, focussed areas, and technical challenges commonly hinder effective cooperation between the large number of organisations and agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcement.  Data is often ingested directly into proprietary national systems operated by one silo of government, operated at relatively high security classification, which increases the cost and complexity of sharing with other agencies and stakeholders, both nationally and internationally.

This challenge can be addressed by networking multiple surveillance systems with modern data management and secure Cloud or ‘on-premise’ storage solutions.  The outcome is cost-effective data analysis at large scale and in real time, preserving security classification and enabling delivery of data securely to multiple end-users.  Put simply, data is sourced once and shared across multiple relevant stakeholders.

The Challenge of Non-Reporting Vessels

Authorities over-rely on vessels co-operating by self-reporting their position and activities truthfully, for example, using AIS.  Historically, this has led to reactive approaches, including inefficient (ie expensive, non-persistent, limited area) tasking of assets within areas of operation by aircraft or patrol vessels.  With threats too often remaining undetected, their associated harms are ultimately growing in scale and complexity, posing a significant challenge to maritime authorities, which often act independently, and therefore at higher cost and lower levels of effectiveness.  However, significant information can be acquired through ‘fit-for-purpose' lower-cost radar and by integrating other sensors into a systematised approach which extracts vessel identification and location using data from sensors including cameras and cellular-phones, including passive radio-frequency analysis.  Artificial intelligence enables the integration of this data at scale and in real time to create unique vessel identification, enabling tracking of non-reporting vessels.

Sirius recognises that these maritime organisations need to be supported in order to cooperate effectively through a joint response to threats and challenges at sea. Through a  technology platform that ensures territorial waters are integrated into a common maritime picture through comprehensive and continuous surveillance, Sirius has the ability to improve interoperability across maritime stakeholders, fundamentally improving safety and security at sea.

How Sirius achieves maritime domain awareness at scale 

Sirius’s INSIGHT™ web-based portal fuses and analyses maritime data from existing detection infrastructure to provide enhanced real-time awareness of maritime activity and alerts to suspicious activity at sea, supporting inter-agency and joint working for a wide range of users and operators across a wide range of maritime organisations, enabling proactive and timely national and regional coordination.

INSIGHT is Sirius’s technology platform and flagship product, proven with the UK Government’s Joint Maritime Security Centre (JMSC), the UK centre of excellence for maritime security, since 2020, supporting effective cross-government coordination and enabling a whole-system response to maritime safety and security threats throughout the territorial waters and EEZ of the United Kingdom at home and overseas.  Hardware agnostic, data is extracted from existing infrastructure and additional appropriate sensors.  INSIGHT collates, analyses and distributes real-time access to intelligent data direct to existing customer systems.  Alerts are delivered to users and are accessible via computer, tablet and mobile phone. INSIGHT delivers the right information at the right time, enabling effective and timely decision-making.  As well as supporting day-to-day joint maritime operations in UK and overseas, INSIGHT has provided maritime surveillance data to users during the G7 Summit in Carbis Bay and COP26 in Glasgow.

INSIGHT being used by operators at sea

“Sirius Insight has a record of consistently high service, providing data for use by key maritime stakeholders. JMSC value their wealth of expertise in maritime security and technology, and the way in which they engage proactively to support operations.”  (Head, UK Joint Maritime Security Centre)

Visit us at EURONAVAL 2024 from 4-7 November on stand C34 to discuss how Sirius’s technology can deliver intelligent data sharing and enable proactive and timely national and regional coordination.