Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak.
Let me, first of all, start off by saying that Vericatch, which is the company I represent, is involved in fishing data. I can't think of a better way of helping tackle IUU than getting actual data as to what's going on. That has to be the core of everything.
Vericatch is a Canadian fishing technology company based in Vancouver, Halifax and St. John's. The company was founded in 2005 by technologists and fishermen. We have a team of in-house developers who develop our products. We have been supporting Canadian harvesters, as well as the DFO, with digital catch-reporting products for more than a decade, and we understand the responsibilities incumbent in that.
Digital catch reporting through electronic logbooks helps fisheries in quite a few different ways. Obviously, it can reduce the time, the cost and the effort of reliably gathering information as to what is going on. It can empower harvesters and the DFO with real-time information so that they can make good and timely decisions based on actual data. It can help reduce negative impacts—in the fishing business, there can be many—and it can offer proof of origin with regard to the supply chain, which, again, helps tackle IUU.
Vericatch is the leading provider of products that meet the Canadian national e-log standard. Our products have been approved by the DFO for the majority of fisheries here in Canada, and we are adding fisheries with every release of the product. These products are based on a voluntary basis at the moment, and they have been used to submit data to the DFO.
Our e-log products are based on a tried-and-tested platform designed and developed here in Canada. They're multilanguage and are designed to work online and off-line from a smart phone, tablet or computer.
As was previously raised at meeting 93, there were some questions relating to the security of fishing data, and I want to briefly speak to them.
To be clear, data from Canadian customers is securely stored here on servers in Canada. We are a technology company. That's what we do, and that's what we know. We follow strong security protocols and approaches to protect our systems and the user data. Our privacy policy is compliant with Canadian federal and provincial laws, and additionally with standards such as the GDPR in Europe.
To get a little bit more specific, there are just two cases where we would disclose user information. One is if we have to disclose it as part of providing our product and services to the user. For example, if somebody is submitting data into our platform that needs to be submitted on their behalf to DFO, then we will disclose that information to DFO. That's part of offering the product. The only other case is if we're legally required to do so by a court. That's it.
We are looking forward to helping modernize the Canadian fishing industry and also to helping harvesters and DFO get the benefits in performance and reliability into Canadian fisheries. As many other industries have seen, there are huge benefits if timely and accurate data are available, and we strongly believe that the e-logs introduction in Canada will help the Canadian fishing industry.
Again, coming back to IUU, I will say that good data is everything. If you don't have good data, you're shooting from the hip, and you're never going to really get there. Getting the good data in from the fisherman actually doing the work is the best way to tackle IUU.
Thank you again for the chance to speak.