Shipping Nations to Promote Digital Certificates

 

The Danish Maritime Authority made world news when it announced on 24 June last year that from then on Danish ships were no longer to set to sea with heaps of paper certificates.

 

Today the Danish Maritime Authority only issues digital certificates, which are very efficient and save time and money for both shipowners and authorities.

 

Danish Maritime Authority has concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the maritime authorities in Singapore and Norway. The MoU has been signed on the occasion of the maritime event Singapore Maritime Week and establishes the basis for the three countries' efforts to spread the use of digital certificates.

 

Director General Andreas Nordseth from the Danish Maritime Authority said: ”It is an important step that Norway, Singapore and Denmark – three major shipping nations – join forces to spread digital certificates. Cooperation makes it easier for us to promote the use of digital certificates and make more countries enter upon the digital course."

 

Digital certificates have the potential to give us much more than faster postal delivery: 

 

”E-certificates are merely the tip of the iceberg. The certificates as such are only the beginning. The next step will be for the authorities to exchange and inspect certificates via the databases of one another rather than to do so on board the ships," explains Andreas Nordseth.

 

Hereby, it becomes possible to drastically reduce the time spent by PSC officers checking documents on board ships in ports all over the world.