The maritime industry has traditionally relied on paper-based and PDF formats for seafarers’ certificates, including STCW certificates of competency and proficiency, as well as other personal qualifications. While PDF-based solutions represent a step towards digitalisation, they continue to present significant challenges related to storage, verification, accessibility, portability, and fraud prevention for seafarers, training institutions, flag States, crew managers, and ship operators.
In response, BIMCO has developed a standardised data model for electronic seafarer certificates, which has now been adopted into the IMO Compendium on Facilitation and Electronic Business. This model is intended to serve as a common semantic foundation to support harmonisation, interoperability, and trust across digital certification platforms.
The purpose of the workshop is to demonstrate, in a practical and transparent manner, that genuine interoperability between independent digital certificate vault solutions is achievable when using the IMO Compendium reference model.
Solution providers are invited to pilot the exchange of a defined set of electronic seafarer certificates between respective platforms, without loss, alteration, or invalidation of data. The exercise is non-competitive, non-evaluative, and not a compliance audit. It is intended solely to illustrate interoperability in practice and to build confidence among industry stakeholders.
The workshop is explicitly not a “blame and shame” exercise, nor will BIMCO publish comparative rankings, individual pass/fail results, or commercial assessments of individual solutions. BIMCO will however report the result in a neutral and balanced manner to the IMO.
The interoperability pilot will be conducted under the Chatham House Rule, meaning that information shared during the exercise may be used, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of participants will be disclosed.
Key principles
The pilot will be guided by four overarching principles:
- Interoperability across the industry
Digital certificate platforms must integrate seamlessly across shipowners, managers, and service providers, ensuring continuity of seafarers’ certification records throughout their careers. - Seamless migration between digital certificate vaults
Seafarers must be able to securely transfer their complete set of certificates between approved vault providers - for example when changing employer or assignment - without degradation, loss, or re-validation. - International recognition of identity
Digital certificates should be supported by robust digital identity mechanisms aligned with relevant international standards (e.g. ICAO, ISO, OpenID Foundation), to strengthen trust, reduce fraud, and streamline verification. - Data protection and confidentiality
Platforms must ensure that sensitive personal and certification data remains confidential and accessible only to authorised parties, in accordance with applicable data-protection frameworks.
Participation
We welcome independent solution providers of digital seafarer certificate vault solutions that support, or intend to support, the IMO Compendium data model for electronic certificates.
If your organisation is interested in participating, please confirm your availability by Friday, 14th August 2026 to Jeppe Skovbakke Juhl, jsj@bimco.org.
BIMCO will then provide detailed technical arrangements and the Terms of Reference for the interoperability pilot in advance.
BIMCO believes that demonstrating interoperability in practice is a critical step towards broad industry adoption of electronic seafarer certificates and we welcome your contribution to this collaborative effort.
