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Data sources and licences

Each position names its source and each response carries the credit each source's licence asks for in attribution. Keep it when you publish.

Positions and tracks come only from sources whose licence lets us pass them on: BarentsWatch, Digitraffic and our own and volunteer stations. Today that means Norway, parts of the Baltic and our own stations' areas: a free account shows which. A vessel heard only by another source is answered with her last position from one of these, or without a position (position_withheld: true). Port figures, waiting times, terminal occupancy and congestion are worked out only from sources whose terms allow it and name the terminal or anchorage instead of giving coordinates.

Source	Coverage	Licence
`barentswatch`	Norwegian waters, shore and Norwegian satellite stations	NLOD 2.0 (Norwegian Coastal Administration)
`digitraffic`	Finnish waters and the northern Baltic	CC BY 4.0 (Fintraffic)
`udp`	Gangway volunteer receiver stations	Gangway station terms

Enrichment

Vessel particulars come from open registers, with the source of each field in provenance: Wikidata, USCG PSIX, FCC, Transport Canada, ISED and the Norwegian fishing register. Depth from EMODnet Bathymetry, sea marks from OpenStreetMap (ODbL). Some port positions from GeoNames (geonames.org, CC BY 4.0), places matched to ports by Gangway.

History

Our recorded history starts on 7 October 2026 and grows every minute. Tracks, port calls and activity reach back 7 days on the free API allowance, 90 days on Plus and up to 12 months on Pro and Scale.