Maldives Police Officer Completes Regional Workshop on Maritime Domain Awareness as Digital Evidence

A Maldivian police officer has completed a specialized regional workshop on utilizing maritime tracking and security data as admissible digital evidence in legal proceedings.

According to Maldives Police Service, Inspector of Police Abdul Hafeez Ibrahim represented the law enforcement agency at the "Regional Workshop on Maritime Domain Awareness as Digital Evidence," organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from September 13 to 15.

The program focused on familiarizing investigators with UNODC operational guidelines to track maritime crimes, enforce fisheries laws against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and investigate marine environmental pollution. Participants reviewed technical methods for collecting, preserving, and presenting data from Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), satellite imagery, coastal radar, and ocean drift modeling to serve as credible evidence in courtrooms.

Discussions also examined the procedural, legal, and technical hurdles encountered when submitting digital surveillance data to judicial authorities, with regional participants exchanging international best practices on verifying and safeguarding the integrity of electronic evidence.