Courtesy: BBC
By Chris Baraniuk
Technology of Business reporter
1 February 2019
For a long time, being out at sea meant being out of sight and out of reach.
And all kinds of shenanigans went on as a result – countries secretly selling oil and other goods to countries they’re not supposed to under international sanctions rules, for example, not to mention piracy and kidnapping.
The problem is that captains can easily switch off the current way of tracking ships, called the Automatic Identification System (AIS), turning their vessels into “ghost ships”.
But now thousands of surveillance satellites have been launched into space, and artificial intelligence (AI) is being applied to the images they take.
There’s no longer anywhere to hide – even for ghost ships.
Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, says his firm’s satellite imagery analysis has identified Iranian tankers moving in and out of port, despite US sanctions restricting much of the country’s oil exports.
He’s watched North Korea – which is limited by international rules to 500,000 barrels of refined oil every year – taking delivery of fuel via ship-to-ship transfers on the open ocean.
Continue reading Tracking sanctions-busting ‘ghost ships’ on the high seas
