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Seafarer Digital Certificate Charter Header transparent

We, the undersigned stakeholders in the maritime industry, recognise the need for agreement on a harmonised, transparent, interoperable and verifiable approach to the issue and management of seafarer’s digital certificates.

In alignment with the goals of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and building upon the foundation of the IMO Compendium on Facilitation and Electronic Business, we hereby declare our commitment to:

Purpose and Scope

Establish common principles for issuing, revalidating, managing and verifying seafarers’ digital certificates. The Charter aims to:  

  • Improve efficiency and trust while protecting seafarers’ rights and personal data
  • Set common principles for digital seafarer certificates
  • Make verification faster and more reliable
  • Improve interoperability and reduce administrative burdens and fraud risk
  • Protect personal data, rights and access to remedies
  • Support cyber security and operational resilience 
  • Support the uptake of a harmonised data set based on the IMO Compendium, ensuring alignment with existing international standards. 

 

This Charter: 

  • Covers the full lifecycle of digital certificates for seafarers: issuing, storing, presenting, verifying, revalidating, renewing, replacing, suspending and revoking 
  • Is technology-neutral. Any solution may be used if it meets these principles and minimum requirements
  • Does not change any legal requirements (including STCW, MLC 2006, flag/port State control, immigration rules and data protection laws).

Our Commitments 

We agree to:

  1. Adopt a unified data set
    Utilise a standardised set of data elements, as defined in the IMO Compendium, for seafarers’ digital certificates

  2. Enable interoperable data exchange 
    Implement harmonised protocols that support continuous, secure and verifiable data sharing between systems and stakeholders

  3. Support verification and transparency
    Facilitate third-party verification of seafarers’ certificates through transparent and auditable digital processes
  4. Promote efficiency and accuracy
    Reduce administrative burden and duplication by enabling “enter once, use many” data sharing principles
  5. Protects seafarer’s data rights
    Ensure that seafarers have the right to control access to and updating of their own data
  6. Collaborate on technical standard
    Work with neutral industry bodies and standardisation organisations (eg ISO TC8) to co-develop and maintain supporting technical standards
  7. Ensure long-term sustainability
    Commit to the ongoing governance, maintenance and evolution of the protocol and data standards to meet future regulatory and operational needs.

This Charter is voluntary. Parties may adopt it and, if they choose, refer to it in contracts, policies or procedures. Parties will publicly acknowledge their signatory status to the Charter. 

DEclaration

We invite all maritime stakeholders – including shipowners, operators, port authorities, technology providers and regulatory bodies – to join this initiative.

Together, we can agree on and adopt a common, robust, future-proof framework that supports the digitalisation of seafarers’ certificates. 

 

Email Grant Hunter to sign the charter See the current list of signatories