Tor-Arne Schmidt Nordmo

Master of science Tor-Arne Schmidt Nordmo will Thursday August 17th, 2023, at 12:15 hold his disputas for the PhD degree in Science. The title of his thesis is: 

"Dutkat: A Privacy-Preserving System for Automatic Catch Documentation and Illegal Activity in the Fishing Industry"

Summary:

United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 14 aims to conserve and sustainably use the oceans and their resources for the benefit of people and the planet. This includes protecting marine ecosystems, preventing pollution, and overfishing, and increasing scientific understanding of the oceans. Achieving this goal will help ensure the health and well-being of marine life and the millions of people who rely on the oceans for their livelihoods. In order to ensure sustainable fishing practices, it is important to have a system in place for automatic catch documentation. This thesis presents our research on the design and development of Dutkat, a privacy-preserving, edge-based system for catch documentation and detection of illegal activities in the fishing industry. Utilising machine learning techniques, Dutkat can analyse large amounts of data and identify patterns that may indicate illegal activities such as overfishing or illegal discard of catch. Additionally, the system can assist in catch documentation by automating the process of identifying and counting fish species, thus reducing potential human error and increasing efficiency. Specifically, our research has consisted of the development of various components of the Dutkat system, evaluation through experimentation, exploration of existing data, and organization of machine learning competitions. We have also implemented it from a compliance-by-design perspective to ensure that the system is in compliance with data protection laws and regulations such as GDPR. Our goal with Dutkat is to promote sustainable fishing practices, which aligns with the Sustainable Development Goal 14, while simultaneously protecting the privacy and rights of fishing crews.

Evaluation Committee

• Trustee Chair Professor Mubarak Shah, Director at Center for research in Computer Vision, University of Central Florida (1. Opponent)
• Dr. Ana-Maria Dragulinescu, Research Assistant and Lecturer at Telecommunications Department, Faculty of Electronics, telelcommunications and Information Technology, Polytechnical University of Bucharest (2. Opponent)
• Professor Alexander Horsch, Institute for Informatics, UiT (intern member and leader of the committee)

Supervisors 

• Professor Dag Johansen, Institute for Informatics, UiT (main supervisor)
• Professor Håvard Dagenborg, Institute for Informatics, UiT
• Researcher Michael Alexander Riegler, Simula Met, Oslo

The Disputas will be led by Professor Arne Smalås, Dean at the Faculty of Science and Technology at UiT.

Streaming site

The disputas and trial lecture will be streamed from these sites:

Disputas (12:15 - 16:00)

Trial Lecture (10:15 - 11:15)

Thesis

The thesis is available through Munin.