To whom it may concern
An extract of the report of the 78th session of the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) held at IMO headquarter in London from 12 to 21 May 2004 regarding maritime security is introduced hereunder, for your information.

1. Distribution of the information on the security submitted by member States
The Secretariat of the IMO informed that they established a dedicated database for the information (Note: The database is accessible at
URL "http://www2.imo.org/ISPSCode/ISPSInformation.aspx" for the information on the contact points on the maritime security etc for respective member States)

2. SSO training
The Committee reaffirmed the conclusion of the MSC 77 (held in May 2003) as given in paragraphs 18 and 19 of the annex to MSC/Circ. 1097). I.e., until the introduction, in the STCW Convention and in the STCW Code, of mandatory training and certification requirements for Ship Security Officers (SSO), the interim measure, I.e., accepting the International Ship Security Certificate (ISSC) as prima facie evidence that Ship Security Officer and ship's security personnel have received training in accordance with the guidance provided in paragraph B/13 of the ISPS Code should be retained.

3. CSO & FPSO Training
The Committee decided not to develop a mandatory instrument but to develop guidelines on the training and certification as a future task of the organization.

4. LRIT (Long Range Identification and Tracking)
A proposal has been made to amend SOLAS Chapter XI-2 requiring new installation called LRIT, to be used for identification and tracking of the ship in the ocean area, I.e., off coast. While basic principle of the function of the installation is agreed (I.e., only to provide information on security, terminate transmission if required, does not interface with AIS), there were still numbers of issues to be discussed regarding details and concrete text of the convention. It was decided to discuss such items in IMO's Sub-Committees dealing with technical details. (NAV and COMSAR).

(To be continued)