Know Your Data (KYD™)

What is Know Your Data (KYD™)?

Know Your Data (KYD™) is a framework that ensures the data feeding AI, risk models, and maritime decision systems is accurate, complete, and trustworthy. In the maritime domain – where AIS manipulation, missing port records, false ownership filings, and fragmented signals are common – KYD™ ensures that insights are built on solid information rather than assumptions.

Even the most advanced AI will fail if the underlying data is flawed. KYD™ provides the validation layer that prevents this, confirming vessel identity, verifying sensor signals, resolving inconsistencies, and ensuring that every alert or insight can be traced back to reliable data.

Key Takeaways

• AI is only as strong as the data beneath it – KYD™ prevents “garbage in, garbage out.”
• Data accuracy, completeness, and explainability are essential for maritime AI performance.
• KYD™ helps identify where data gaps or manipulations distort risk scores, sanctions checks, or operational decisions.
• Validated data reduces false positives, strengthens investigations, and supports defensible decisions across sectors.

Why KYD™ is the Foundation of Trustworthy AI

AI systems in the maritime ecosystem are flooded with many sources of data, and they depend entirely on the quality of the data behind them. KYD™ exists because even the most advanced models will fail, or hallucinate, when fed inaccurate, incomplete, or manipulated maritime data. Clean, validated inputs allow AI to produce insights that are explainable, defensible, and aligned with real-world behavior.

High-integrity data is what makes it possible to detect illicit routing, reconstruct voyages, validate identities, and identify deceptive shipping practices. A single mismatched registry entry can distort behavioral models, mask high-risk movement, or trigger unreliable alerts. KYD™ prevents that drift by cross-verifying signals across AIS, SAR, EO, RF, ownership records, port logs, and historical behavior.

A real-world example shows what’s at stake. In a documented incident, erroneous AIS data caused bridge officers to misinterpret the position of a stationary vessel, leading to a collision in poor visibility. The lesson applies directly to AI: when the data is wrong, every downstream decision becomes flawed.

Why is high-quality maritime data essential for AI performance?

AI learns by comparing historical patterns with real-time signals. If those inputs are corrupted – whether by spoofed AIS, outdated registries, or inconsistent filings – the model learns the wrong patterns. This leads to misclassifications, unreliable alerts, and loss of operator trust.

How does KYD™ make AI outputs explainable and defensible?

All signals are cross-checked against independent sources before they influence a model. This ensures every alert can be traced back to validated evidence rather than a single flawed data point, giving users the transparency required for audits, investigations, and internal reviews.

What are the risks of building AI on incomplete or inaccurate data?

Bias in behavioral baselines, failure to detect deceptive shipping practices, escalations based on noise rather than real threats, and inconsistent recommendations that erode confidence. KYD™ keeps models grounded in validated truth so decisions remain accurate and repeatable.

How KYD™ Strengthens Decisions Across Trading & Shipping

In commercial maritime operations, every decision – from fixing a vessel to structuring a trade – depends on whether the underlying data is trustworthy. KYD™ gives trading, chartering, and compliance teams the confidence that vessel identity, routing, ownership, and documentation all align with real-world behavior. When data is incomplete or inconsistent, risk creeps in unnoticed: vessels appear compliant on paper while sensor data reveals undeclared activity or links to opaque networks.

Accurate data also reduces operational friction. False positives often originate from outdated registries, mismatched AIS positions, or recycled corporate entities. KYD™ ensures the screening baseline is clean before compliance checks begin, so teams focus only on genuine exposures rather than noise.

How does KYD™ help reduce false positives in sanctions compliance?

False positives often stem from inconsistent identifiers, incomplete movement histories, or ownership records that don’t match reality. KYD™ validates these inputs before screening, ensuring alerts surface only when the underlying evidence is credible.

Why is trusted data essential for vessel and ownership due diligence?

A vessel can appear legitimate on documents while operating through layered ownership, recycled filings, or hidden connections to sanctioned actors. KYD™ reconciles corporate hierarchies with real-time behavioral evidence so due diligence reflects what a vessel actually is, not what it claims to be.

How does KYD™ improve voyage and counterparty risk assessments?

By aligning paperwork with sensor-confirmed movements, KYD™ reveals inconsistencies that signal concealed origins, unauthorized STS activity, or routing through high-risk zones. That transparency helps traders avoid exposure before a deal is fixed or insured.

How KYD™ Supports National Security and Enforcement

For government, coast guard, and defense missions, data integrity determines whether an intelligence assessment is actionable. Agencies face adversaries who manipulate AIS identity, spoof positions, recycle vessel identities, or operate through shell companies designed to exploit gaps in public datasets. KYD™ closes those gaps by validating every data element across independent sources – AIS, imagery, RF, registries, behavioral baselines, and corporate structures.

Accurate data is also essential for maritime domain awareness. Without full coverage and verified identity, high-risk vessels can blend into routine traffic. KYD™ establishes a trusted operational baseline that helps agencies distinguish legitimate anomalies from genuine threats.

Whether monitoring sanctions evasion networks, smuggling corridors, trafficking routes, or activity around critical maritime infrastructure, KYD™ provides attribution-grade clarity that supports coordinated enforcement.

How does KYD™ strengthen maritime domain awareness?

It creates a clean, verified map of who is operating in national waters, where they came from, and whether their behavior aligns with legitimate operations, reducing the blind spots illicit actors rely on.

Why is global data coverage essential in enforcement missions?

Bad actors move across borders, EEZs, and regulatory jurisdictions. KYD™ ensures agencies see consistent, authenticated vessel behavior across regions, even when AIS goes dark or identity changes occur.

How does KYD™ help agencies detect deceptive shipping practices more reliably?

By comparing declared movements with SAR/EO detections, reconciling ownership discrepancies, and analyzing behavioral deviations, KYD™ validates each data point and exposes manipulation with the confidence needed for interdiction or escalation.

How Windward Applies KYD™ Across Its Intelligence Stack

Windward’s platform is built around KYD™ as a foundational principle: no insight is generated until the underlying data is validated, cross-checked, and resolved across independent sources. This prevents misleading signals from entering risk scoring, anomaly detection, or counterparty workflows.

MAI Expert™ then adds explainability, showing users exactly which indicators drove a classification and how each element compares to historical and behavioral context. KYD™ and explainability work together to create an audit-ready intelligence layer that users can trust, not only because the AI is strong, but because the data beneath it is defensible.

KYD™ also powers Windward’s KYV™ framework, ensuring vessel identity, ownership, and behavioral history are verified before any risk or compliance decision is made. Combined with Document Validation and Remote Sensing Intelligence, KYD™ brings vessel truth, voyage truth, and cargo/document truth into a unified operational picture.

Book a demo to see how KYD™ delivers the data confidence behind every Windward decision.