Certain Malaysian vessels will soon have their own unique quick response codes to help ID them.
The waters off the coast of the Malaysian state of Sabah will soon feature fishing boats with QR code identification. The area is often seen as a kind of paradise when it comes to being able to fish for seafood. However, the local bounty has started to draw foreign fishermen who don’t have the right to be there.
A common trend among fishermen from other countries is to paint fake Malaysian registration numbers on their boats.
This practice allows them to look as though they are Malaysian ships when they are actually people from other countries, fishing illegally in the country’s waters. In fact, many of those boats even go to the extent of flying the country’s flag, the Jalur Gemilang, in order to try to appear as though they are locals.
The Malaysian Fisheries Department has made a considerable effort to overcome this problem. They neither want their area to be overfished nor do they want their own fishermen to face too much foreign competition. For that reason, they have come up with a solution in the form of QR code identification tags.
The QR code identification will be issued to all deep sea fishing vessels with Sabah registrations.
At the moment, there are 51 deep sea fishing vessels registered in Sabah. The current prediction is that it will take about a month to add the QR codes to all the ships. These markings will come in the form of quick response codes on a smart tag. They will be affixed to all local registered vessels.
Law enforcement personnel will be equipped with special tag readers. In this way, they can scan the QR codes and check to make sure the vessels are authorized to operate within those waters.
“This will make it easier to detect any illegal fishermen,” said Fisheries Department Director Dr Ahemad Sade. This is true because all local tracking units and all local fishing boats will be required to be equipped with the appropriate identification or scanning devices.
Sade also pointed out that QR code identification is highly difficult to duplicate, making it very simple for law enforcement personnel to rapidly verify whether or not the fishing boat they’re checking is supposed to be there.
