Detection of false AIS messages for the improvement of maritime situational awareness

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) was initially designed for safety and security of navigation purposes. However it was progressively also used for other objectives, such as surveillance, and thus led to the discovery of behaviors such as the falsification of the AIS messages by people that have been carrying out illegal activities and will to keep their activities up in an hidden way. In addition, the messages contain erroneous data and undergo spoofing attacks. The paper introduces the quality dimensions of data that shall be used in a quality assessment of AIS messages, in order to point out the dubious ones. The principles of a methodological approach for the detection of such data errors and falsifications are introduced.