Using Collaborative Human-Centric Information Systems
Salamanca, Spain (19-30 September, 2011)
Objectives
The main objective of this ASI is to provide discussions on prediction, recognition and deterrent of maritime piracy through the use of collaborative human-centric information support systems. Maritime piracy is a widespread international concern. Over the years, it has been on the rise with the number of attacks increasing substantially. Deep sea vessels are extremely susceptible to hostile boarding due to their inherent vulnerability. They are large and heavy and in the most cases served by rather small crews. In addition, ship owners are reluctant to directly address the issue of maritime piracy for commercial reasons resulting in the lack of reporting and law enforcement Pirates are aware and take advantage of the vessel vulnerability and the lack of police on board, which leave their crime unpunished most of the time. It is necessary to suppress piracy and violent marine crime through anti-piracy and counter-piracy operations: Anti-piracy training and operational security awareness should be mandatory for vessel owners and vessel crews Crisis Management and anti-piracy programs must be defined and followed in order to reduce the vulnerability of the vessels.
Collaborative human-centric information support systems can significantly improve the ability of every nation to predict and prevent an incident or rapidly recognize its nature, and extent for effective collective response. Designing collaborative human-centric information support systems requires human system integration, cognitive systems engineering methodologies, collaborative environment technologies, knowledge exploitation and data/information mining, information fusion, and collaborative decision support capabilities to:
- Understand the vulnerabilities of the maritime location by considering all social, geopolitical, economical, inter-agency policy and jurisdictional aspects;
- Rapidly develop shared understandings of the operational environment; plan operations; and monitor the situation and the execution of the plans to ensure that each individual worker is productive and concentrated in its assigned roles and tasks;
- Formulate evaluation criteria to optimize action, and synchronize a diverse set of plans and actions to support multi-agency, multi-jurisdiction and multi-national cooperation.
- Enhance existing business procedures to address security issues and provide enhanced situational awareness and inter-agency co-operation: support the develop of A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP);
- Support Crew Security Awareness and Detection Training to provide for proactive involvement of the crew to DETECT and DETER attackers with dramatically increased operational security of any vessel The ability to DETECT and DETER should also be coupled with the ability to RESPOND;
- Provide capability and technologies for deterrence, interdiction and/or response based on estimation of threat characteristics and types, threat stages and ranges and behaviour (e.g. Anti-Piracy Tracking Devices);
- Support better policing: develop close cooperation with local law enforcement agencies and giving them intelligence of better and better quality, they'll be able to move aggressively and make arrests;
- Enable the RESPONSE communities to timely and securely access data, information, services, etc. relevant to their roles and responsibilities, regardless of what agency operates the facilities where the critical data and services reside.