Overview#
A vessel goes dark on AIS for 36 hours near a known smuggling corridor, then reappears 400 nautical miles away. Analysts need to reconstruct the route, compare it against historical patterns, and link the activity to an open investigation. The Maritime domain provides all of that: real-time AIS position tracking, voyage reconstruction, geofenced area monitoring, and direct investigation linking.
Key Features#
- Vessel CRUD operations with detailed vessel metadata
- AIS position tracking with real-time location updates
- Historical route analysis and voyage reconstruction
- Maritime area monitoring with geofence alerting
- Investigation linking for maritime crime and intelligence cases
- Vessel type classification and flag state tracking
- MMSI-based vessel identification
Use Cases#
Relevant sectors include law enforcement, defence, and financial crime (sanctions enforcement).
- Tracking vessel movements in real time for maritime surveillance operations
- Reconstructing historical vessel routes for investigation analysis
- Monitoring high-risk maritime areas with geofence-based alerting
- Linking vessel activity data to ongoing investigations
Integration#
The Maritime domain integrates with Investigation for case linking, Geofence for area monitoring, Alert for vessel movement notifications, and the external data domain for AIS feed integration.
Open Standards#
- ITU-R M.1371 (Automatic Identification System): Vessel position, identity, and voyage data are ingested directly in AIS format, using MMSI as the primary vessel identifier per the ITU-R M.1371 specification.
- IMO Ship Identification Number Scheme: The IMO number is stored and used for vessel identity verification, registry enrichment, and cross-referencing against sanctions databases, in accordance with the International Maritime Organization's unique ship identification scheme.
- UN/LOCODE (United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations): Port records are synchronised quarterly from the official UN/LOCODE database, and each port entry carries its UN/LOCODE identifier for interoperability with trade and logistics systems.
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: Flag state is stored and assessed as an ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code, enabling standardised flag-risk scoring and cross-domain correlations.
- EU CISE (Common Information Sharing Environment): A dedicated integration ingests and queries maritime messages in the EU CISE format, allowing interoperability with European maritime surveillance networks.
- GeoJSON (RFC 7946): Maritime area boundaries and geofence definitions are stored and exchanged as GeoJSON, enabling standard geographic queries and alert polygon evaluation.
- GraphQL (June 2018 specification): All queries, mutations, and type definitions for vessel tracking, route reconstruction, and geofence management are exposed through a strongly typed GraphQL API.
Last Reviewed: 2026-02-05 Last Updated: 2026-04-14