Utilisation of the databases for maritime safety control

Different databases about merchant navy ships are utilized or introduced in Poland: Polish Harbors Information & Control System (PHICS) allowing to collect data concerning vessels visiting Polish ports, database of the Automatic Identification System (Helsinki Commission Service) collecting in real time information transmitted by ships sailing in the Baltic Sea area and enabling its distribution to maritime administrations of all Baltic States, global Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) system extending ships monitoring outside GMDSS A1 areas and Information Processing System (IPS) which is a database about ships visiting the area of the Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) Zatoka Gdańska. Usage possibilities of these five databases for maritime safety and security control will be analyzed in this paper.