Upgrading to S-63 1.1 & AVCS 1 DVD Questions and Answers June ...

1.0 General Q&A
What is
happening?
Why must ECDIS
be approved to
work with IHO
standards?
The IHO has announced that, as of 1 January 2014, all providers of data
using the S-63 Data Protection Scheme should provide equipment and
data services to the S-63 Edition 1.1 standard.
The IMO ECDIS Performance Standard used as the basis for ECDIS type
approval requires that the chart information used in ECDIS should be the
latest edition and conform to IHO standards (IHO Special Publication S-52
and S-57).
ECDIS must be capable of accepting both non-encrypted ENCs and ENCs
encrypted in accordance with the IHO Data Protection Scheme (Special
Publication S-63).
What is S-63? S-63 is the IHO standard for the protection of ENC information.
S-63 provides Hydrographic Offices with a specification detailing how ENC
data can be protected from unauthorised use. Helping to reduce the risk
of data piracy and the distribution of unofficial dangerous ENCs to the
Mariner.
All type approved ECDIS are manufactured to accept official ENC data
services that conform to requirements in IHO S-63.
Note: The original edition, S-63 1.0, was introduced in December 2002 and
a revised edition, S-63 1.1, was published in March 2008. A minor update
to S-63 1.1.1 was made in 19 April 2012.
What advantage
does S-63 Edition
1.1 offer?
S-63 Edition 1.1 offers improvements over the older version including:
1. The ability to support large media formats allowing the entire ENC
dataset to be distributed on a single DVD every week, removing the
need for base disc re-issues.
2. Improved data loading means newer ECDIS are designed to load
S-63 1.1 data more efficiently than was possible with S-63 1.0.
3. There will be fewer warning messages.
4. There will be no need to change the security scheme certificate
because newer ECDIS are supplied with the IHO certificate used
by S-63 1.1 (IHO.CRT) pre-installed.
All of this results in an improved customer/user-experience whilst
delivering the same safe and secure information.
January 2014