Vessel monitoring system (VMS) data for fishing vessels within Scottish Waters: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for “raw historical VMS positional data for fishing vessels within Scottish Waters in a tabular format (e.g. csv or txt) that includes the following fields, where available:

• Anonymised Vessel Code
• Length
• Deadweight Tonnage
• Timestamp (date and time),
• Latitude
• Longitude
• Fishing Method (Gear Type)
• Speed
• Status (e.g. engaged in fishing, transiting etc)
• Flag

Ideally, I would need it to cover a 10-year period from 01 Jan 2014 00:00 to 31 Dec 2023 23:59. I require VMS positional data for all fishing vessels rather than just UK registered vessels, if available.

This is similar to this FOI request: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400396895/ (FOI reference EIR/202400396895).”

Response

Please note that, with regards to the fishing method (gear_name column), this data is extracted using a “fuzzy match” but this isn’t always accurate and there are often a lot of non matches.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because fishing status information is not submitted with the positional reports sent by vessels. Whilst we do receive fishing status information as part of other reports sent by vessels, these are held in a different database which is not currently electronically linked to the VMS system. We are looking to implement a system in the future that will be able to hold or link together several sets of data currently held in separate systems, however, it is not possible at the present time.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about logbook data linked to VMS data, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.