The identification of the ship comes in very handy through matching it with the radar image. One would know whether that ship is permitted to operate in this water or not. Just recently, we participated in certain activities that quickly uncovered some illegal fishing on the coast of Europe. You see the ship but you don't know if it's legal or illegal. So you need to identify the ship through automatic identification system or other means and then fuse the data and by comparison you would know whether it is or is not permitted to operate there.
On May 13th, 2009. See this statement in context.