Deep Nets Spotlight Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated (IUU) Fishing

The need for increased global surveillance and enforcement efforts to combat Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated (IUU) fishing is well known. This paper describes the current research status in developing a novel technique of associating Automated Identification System (AIS) anti-collision messages to satellite vessel detects. Each detected ship image has a wealth of information which allows development of dark ship tracking and identification. A dark ship is a ship that is not broadcasting AIS. Ships involved in illegal activities often disable their AIS transmitter to avoid detection by authorities. Dark ship tracking and identification uses a deep similarity metrics to compare current and previous observations. If any of the previous observations have an identity, e.g. a known vessel on the international IUU watch-list, then the probability of its involvement in illegal activity is increased. Additional indicators of IUU activity such as frequent flag changes are combined in a probabilistic evaluation of accumulated evidence using local laws, rules, and regulations to render IUU assessments using commercially available imagery and data sources.