Report on an autonomous ferry in Finland

Below is a report produced by the BBC in Finland aboard an autonomous vessel (a real one, not a 3D animation). It is quite interesting, as this type of technology may soon become a reality.

Around 2:30 in the video, the journalist briefly addresses cybersecurity, explaining that “if something goes wrong with the autonomous vessel, a control station [on shore] like this one will allow operators to take control of the ship from land and bring it to safety, wherever it is in the world. Rolls-Royce, which developed the technology, believes that within less than 20 years we will see fully autonomous ships crossing our oceans. But, as with any connected technology, one of the major concerns is security.”

Oskar Levander, Vice President of Innovation at Rolls-Royce, then adds: “What we have done is make significant efforts in terms of security from the very beginning of autonomous ship development. We can make it difficult for pirates [he no longer specifies whether he means cyber pirates or not, which is telling] to access the vessel, but at some point they may manage to get in. What we do afterwards, of course, is ensure that they cannot take control of the ship. If they are denied access to the system, they cannot operate it. In fact, their only option would be to disable the machinery to stop the ship. And having a ship floating in the middle of the ocean without propulsion is not easy.”