ASSIST: Access controlled ship identification streams

Abstract

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires a majority of cargo and passenger ships to use the Automatic Identification System (AIS) for navigation safety and traffic control. Distributing live AIS data on the Internet can offer a global view based on ships' status for both operational and analytical purposes to port authorities, shipping and insurance companies, cargo owners and ship captains and other stakeholders. Yet, uncontrolled, this distribution can seriously undermine navigation safety and security and the privacy of the various stakeholders. In this paper we present ASSIST, a system prototype based on our recently proposed access control framework, to protect data streams from unauthorized access. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the system in a real scenario with real AIS data streams. © 2011 Authors.