Maersk, Heidmar and others to trial blockchain-based seafarer certification system

Maritime Blockchain Labs (MBL), an initiative founded by Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Blockchain Labs for Open Collaboration (BLOC), has announced a new consortium that will pilot a blockchain-based seafarer certification system, Hellenic Shipping News reported.

The participating firms include MMBL, Maersk, Heidmar, PTC Holdings Corp., Mission to Seafarers, C-LOG, Navozyme, Hanseaticsoft and others.

“Blockchain is essentially a collaborative technology, and so we need to build with industry rather than adopting a top-down approach, and therefore an essential ingredient to this project is to start by building a consortium that represents everyone in the value chain, from vessel owners to the seafarers themselves,” Deanna MacDonald, CEO of BLOC, said.

The pilot project will focus on leveraging blockchain technology to expedite and streamline existing processes which are hampered by a number of issues such as “a lack of verification for safety documentation, paper-based certificate management, and a lack of access to validated safety and training certifications of seafarers.”

The project partners will work towards developing a solution that would enable:

• Individual seafarers to manage their certificate repository from original issuance
• Maritime administrations to manage the renewal and endorsement across jurisdictions
• Crew management organizations to manage seafarers for crewing of vessels, and
• Vessel owners to receive an overview of their crew, certificates and endorsements

“Blockchain has the potential to significantly improve the transparency, authenticity and ease of working with crew certification; both for the ship owner/operator and most importantly for the crew themselves. Building and maintaining an intuitive and user-friendly platform for the management of crew certification will bring hugely significant benefits to all stakeholders. We are looking forward to developing and building the solutions with the consortium,” Graeme Thomson, Head of Northern Europe Manning Office from Maersk, said.