Big Data on the High Seas

In the summer of 2012, an oil tanker anchored mid-ocean transferred cargo for 19 hours. Separately, a ship en route to the Philippines turned its location-broadcasting system on and off, disappearing and reappearing every 36 hours.

These anomalies of maritime behavior, which occur daily, would have probably gone undetected in the past. Today, advanced satellite imaging and communications technology, coupled with analytical software developed by an Israeli startup called Windward, identifies potential illegal activity in real time.