Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

This session provides a practical guide for using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to investigate maritime irregularities. Our case study will be the Russian shadow fleet. The session is beginner-friendly, while the second case study will also be interesting to advanced AIS users and people with programming skills.

In the course of the session, we will present two case studies demonstrating how AIS data can be used to investigate the Russian shadow fleet.

The first case study will show how to use AIS data and vessel metadata to evaluate the environmental risk of shadow fleet traffic. The second is a recent investigation of Greenpeace Italy exposing a new ship-to-ship (STS) transfer hub off the coast of Sicily, revealing multiple sanctions breaches and a lack of oversight by Italian authorities. The investigation triggered two parliamentary inquiries and an investigation by the Chief anti-Mafia Prosecutor and was reported on extensively across national media.

This case study will showcase how the automatic STS detection in MarineTraffic, combined with network analysis (JavaScript, Gephi) and OSINT sources, can be used to trace chains of transfers that bring Russian oil into European ports.

Our session will offer a pro user's look into different proprietary and open-source AIS data platforms and evaluate their affordances (e.g., data export options, alerts, analytics functions), both with and without login. We will give an overview of additional data sources to cross-validate and enrich AIS data (Equasis, ITF Seafarers, IMRRA, order books, class society databases, IGPANDI) and share an internal tool we developed to access these sources automatically.

Participants will leave with practical knowledge of which AIS platforms to use for specific investigative needs, what open-source alternatives exist, and how to apply these tools in combination with network analysis and OSINT sources to uncover maritime irregularities.

This session is based on a case from Serbia, where we managed to identify a person whose identity Serbian authorities and pro-government media actively tried to hide. Starting from a blurred face in a leaked video, we combined basic OSINT with business registries, social networks, geolocation, face recognition tools, dark web email searches, and simple AI-assisted image analysis. We will walk the audience through each phase of the process,  and explain what worked, what failed, and how one can verify findings when evidence is being altered or erased in real time.

Attendees will leave with a practical workflow they can reuse in their own investigations: how to move from a fragment of visual evidence to a confirmed identity, how to cross-check business data with social platforms, how to use face search and morphological comparison safely, how to track digital behavior after supposed arrests, and how to document disappearing online traces before they are wiped. The goal is to share a method that can travel across borders and work in any country where power structures try to keep people invisible.