Seafarer’s Account: reincarnation or complete failure?

In early November, MIU announced the restoration of electronic services for seafarers. So far – only in test mode and only on the ITCS website, which has switched to the state domain. But, together with the ITCS website, the Seafarer’s Account suddenly “resurrected”, about which nothing was said in the MIU’s statement.

USM has found out if the new Seafarers’ Account is official and if there is any reason to trust this application.

Background

The State Register of Seafarers was blocked on July 15th. The authorities explained the blockage: the State Register database was illegally transferred to private individuals, although it was created at the expense of the state budget.

Almost four months have passed since the blocking. In September, the USM revealed the nature of the events related to the lockdown of marine resources. And now, two months later, the question seemingly moved off dead center.

On November 4th, the Ministry of Infrastructure announced the restoration of maritime resources. In fact, the “recovered resources” meant only the website of the Inspectorate for Training and Certification of Seafarers (ITCS), which is now hosted on the state domain itcs.gov.ua.

The restored resource says that it is possible with its help:

• register at the SQC;
• register in the TC system – a special system for Training Centers;
• apply for CES testing:

By the way, the launch of the CES-testing for seafarers, immediately after the restoration of the ITCS website, was also reported in Morrichservice. It was stated that you can register for the test online, but you will have to take the exam in person, in the service centers of the SE “Morrichservice”.

At the same time, a special instruction appeared on the restored ITCS website, which should help seafarers with registration.

In the screenshots that ITCS provided as an instruction for filing an application for CES, you can see that this process was launched not on itcs.gov.ua, but in the mobile application “Seafarer’s Electronic Cabinet”.

What is known about the application “Seafarer’s Electronic Cabinet” at the moment?

The launch of the Seafarer’s Cabinet was announced on the restored ITCS website the very next day after the Ministry’s statement.

“The Seafarer’s Cabinet provides members of sea crews and seafarers with easy access and the ability to remotely manage working documents”, the ITCS website says. The department also said that the application is available for specialists certified by the SQC, cadets of maritime educational institutions and seafarers. There is no confirmation of the creation of this application on the MIU website.

Interestingly, the app itself was added to the app store (specifically the App Store) back on August 10th. On the same day, a clone of the seafarer’s account cabinet.itcs.net.ua appeared, which is illegal.

According to the Head of the Ukrainian Seafarers Union, Krystyna Korol, the organization’s lawyer has already asked the MIU and the Ministry of Digital Transformation about the validity of the application “Seafarer’s Electronic Cabinet”: “We have received answers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Digital Transformation. In each of the departments, we were told that they did not know about any application of the Seafarer’s Cabinet and did not develop it”.

As a confirmation, the organization has provided official responses from two Ministries. The response of the Ministry of Infrastructure, signed by Deputy Minister Yurii Vaskov, says: “The Ministry of Infrastructure has not created this mobile application and has nothing to do with it”.

Despite these responses from Ministries, the ITCS website advises seafarers to register with the SQC using the new app. Moreover, the use of this application for all seafarers are suggested to be made mandatory.

“ITCS requires seafarers to register in it in order to receive a seafarer’s passport, service record book and much more. In another way, it is now impossible, that is, the seafarers were again deprived of the right to choose. A seafarer will not be able to go personally through Morrichservice”, says Krystyna Korol.

Note that a seaman cannot independently enter his documents into the new “Seafarer’s Account”. So, in particular, the certificate automatically enters the database, provided that the training center is registered in the ntz-registration.itcs.gov.ua system. According to representatives of the Maritime Administration, this confirms the legitimacy of the certificates.

How to confirm the legitimacy of the database itself – the department does not specify.

On the one hand, seafarers have no reason not to trust the website itcs.gov.ua, launched at the request of the MIU. On the other hand, on the same site, the ITCS is actively engaged in advertising an application that is not known about in any of the departments: neither in the MIU, nor in the Ministry of Digital Transformation, nor in the State Service of Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine.

Accordingly, no one can guarantee that the SSU will not block this “Seafarer’s Account” too, and the documents issued with its help will not become just pieces of paper again.

Addendum: During the preparation of the publication, on November 17th, the ITCS website stopped working. According to the publication, the system was being updated on the resource. As of November 18th, the website itcs.gov.ua has been restored.