AI Cargo Screening Tool

AI Cargo Screening Tool – an innovative technology solution for detecting undeclared and mis-declared wildlife products in cargo bookings.

Problem

Large volumes of container throughput in maritime ports, & sophisticated concealment methods are a growing challenge for ensuring legality in international wildlife trafficking.

There has been a lack of efficient and accurate tools to detect illegal goods using data supplied by global maritime logistics. Traditional detection methods are slow and reactive, resulting in missed opportunities to intercept shipments in the supply chain.

Solution

National Cargo Bureau (NCB) in collaboration with World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), developed an industry-wide tool for cargo screening to identify illegal wildlife shipments, with funding from Swire Shipping & WWF’s Innovation Fund.

The aim of the project is to create a set of rules from a combination of cargo which traffickers often used to conceal and mis-declare IWT, countries of origin, destination, and transit. The initial proof of concept included rules to detect elephant ivory and pangolin scales, with timber to be the next focal species.

The database will be fully interoperable and can be incorporated into any other screening solution carriers use.