The Canadian Embassy in Manila recently announced that it has partnered with the Philippines to give the country access on Ottawa's satellite-based technology for free to detect dark vessels or ships that turn off their location transmitter often to engage in illegal fishing.

The Canadian Embassy disclosed that the two states signed the deal during the 6th Canada-Philippines Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation meeting in Canada on 13 October 2023.

"Canada and the Philippines held bilateral talks in Ottawa this week. They signed an agreement to deploy Canada's Dark Vessel Detection program to enhance Philippine maritime domain awareness," said Colin Townson, Canadian Embassy head of political affairs office.

Canadian Ambassador to the Philippines David Hartman told reporters last month that Canada is prepared to deploy the system once the agreement is signed.

The satellite-based system would provide the Philippines with "near-real-time monitoring capability" to help enhance its maritime domain awareness and boost its capability to combat illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, as well as protect its marine environments.

Dark vessels are ships that switch off location-transmitting devices to evade monitoring, control and surveillance.