More information is being generated and exchanged more quickly and more official information is becoming more accessible to the public than ever before, but the traditional nature of navies and the shipping industry has caused them to lag behind these developments in respect of surveillance information. Increasing maritime insecurity, not least terrorism, piracy and illegal immigration, has highlighted the need to improve European security by integrating maritime policy making, sharing information more effectively and transparently and coordinating a collective response to security challenges. Many useful initiatives are already underway, but there is the need to make graduated improvements in co-ordination and integration which are affordable and not technologically difficult. Information sharing is the key and the obstacles to it are essentially cultural and organisational. If the evident political will at the top and developing enthusiasm at the coalface can be complemented by more cooperative action by middle management there is great potential for some early wins.
Definitions. Confusion and competition continue because of a lack of agreed definitions of even basic terms like safety and security. People are talking past each other. Annex A offers clarity but an EU champion is required to get some vital working definitions accepted. We suggest DG MARE.
Cooperation. “Round Table” groups of stakeholders are required at various levels to raise awareness, create understanding, develop trust, build linkages and improve effectiveness. Existing informal forums like CHENS and the North Atlantic Coastguard Forum can be expanded.
Navies. Suspicion remains, but the MSSIS system has been transformed from its initial American military roots to a genuinely open global system (currently over 60 subscribers) to which agencies like EMSA could usefully subscribe. Navies need to change secretive habits and join in too, not just as consumers, but as providers, for which they are well equipped.
Schengen. By comparison with trucks and aircraft, ships get a bad deal from Schengen, due to the conflicting requirements of the Maritime Law Enforcement Agencies. The ongoing work in the Commission might provide a solution to this difficulty.
Active Surveillance. Over 90% of current ship data relies on the ships co-operating and transmitting. Small and illegal vessels currently escape detection. More terrestrial and satellite-based radar, electro-optic, and infra red monitoring is required at key nodes such as straits, ports and nuclear installations. Naval units can provide deployable capabilities.
Stakeholders involvement. A greater involvement of all stakeholders, navies very much included, in collection, collation and distribution of maritime surveillance elements, is required for a real improvement of EU Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA).
Governance. SOLAS, IALA, & IMO show that governance models exist for international maritime cooperation without succumbing to deadlock over legal or sovereignty issues. Governance in maritime surveillance can be similarly achieved by agreeing delegated authorities and responsibilities.
Coastguard. The time is not yet ripe for an EU Coastguard, but elements of the same functionality can be delivered by virtual means. Further advances in realising virtual coastguard functions will emerge naturally as projects already in train, such as eborders, e-maritime, e-customs, etc., become operational. DG MARE would appear to be best placed to identify and promote the potential synergies.
Architecture. Thanks to the internet and related developments, distributing and protecting data has made the goal of an affordable, COTS based, service-oriented, loosely-coupled federation of systems readily achievable. Indeed it is already evolving through AIS-LRIT-STIRES; SafeSeaNet-IALANET; EU NAVFOR Atalanta’s Mercury and unifying tools like the EDA’s Common Standard User Interface (CSUI), which are ideally suited to handling the complexities of information sharing and synthesising by different authorities for different purposes at different levels.
Protection of Information. Although it is widely understood that the “need to know” principle needs to be replaced by the need to share, in practice risk aversion still prevents this happening and a responsibility to provide obligation is needed to redress the balance. A Commission directive is required to clarify real and perceived data protection constraints and to remove those that are legally perverse or counterproductive to European security.
Data, Information, Knowledge. A three layer construct facilitates clarity of ownership, protection and distribution providing that the key principle is observed that the “need to share” must replace the “need to know” in a service oriented “federation of systems” approach.
Preferred Approach. The preferred approach is regional. Maritime surveillance is a continuous worldwide process whereas action in response to it tends to be local or regional. The global white picture network (see para 78) must therefore be capable of more detailed enlargement for regional level mission purposes. Progressive implementation should permit information and intelligence exchange by first connecting National Maritime Coordination Centres NMCCs through MARSUR on a by request basis, second, developing these exchanges at regional level, and, in the final phase, the RCC would assume the predominant coordinating role.
Any meaningful improvement in maritime surveillance will depend upon a step change in attitudes towards information sharing. Such a change may be driven in part by legislative amendment led by the Commission but chiefly by cultural change at the individual and collective level in Member States and EU agencies. Such cultural change requires leadership, examples of best practice, confidence building initiatives and, ultimately, sanction in the case of conspicuous failure in the responsibility to provide information of a critical or life-threatening kind. This cannot be allowed to wait for a disaster to precipitate changes for which the need is already evident.
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