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As container shipping continues to digitalise, securing the container release process remains a key challenge for carriers, terminals and logistics providers. With interoperability, cybersecurity and industry-wide standardisation increasingly in focus, Antonia Saratsopoulou, Managing Editor at Container News, spoke with Nico Wauters, CEO of T-Mining, about the vulnerabilities of current container release processes, the shift away from PIN codes, and the challenges of establishing a secure and interoperable global standard.
The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) announces that T-Mining has joined its DCSA+ partnership programme to help advance interoperable digital standards and accelerate the adoption of standards-based Secure Container Release (SCR) across the container shipping industry.
“Walk into a major European seaport and you will see the investment in security everywhere: fences, cameras, smart gates, patrols, all designed to keep cargo safe. Yet when a container is released the process in most ports still hinges on a single PIN code. This code is the digital key to the container, passed from carrier to forwarder, from forwarder to haulier, and eventually to the driver.
The Antwerp scale-up T-Mining uses SCR in the fight against PIN code fraud, which criminals use to smuggle drugs through the port.
The Port of Limburg, a new container terminal in Genk, aims to become the safest inland port in the Benelux. To achieve this goal, various initiatives have been launched, and the terminal will now collaborate with T-Mining’s Secure Container Release (SCR) and itsme® to improve the security of container handling processes.
MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company is the first shipping company in the world to launch ID-based container pick-up, following a successful test phase with Van Moer Logistics and MSC PSA European Terminal (MPET) in 2022. This technology allows MSC containers to be released for transport using ID and biometric data, rather than a PIN code, improving security across the supply chain.