AIS spoofing risks include misleading operational pictures; limitations stem from AIS alone proving nothing.
UK OFSI guidance defines AIS spoofing as the manipulation of AIS data that allows a ship to broadcast different identifying information and can conceal its next port of call or other voyage information; the same guidance describes manipulation used to mask movement. Because AIS supports ship identification, target tracking, search and rescue, shore monitoring and information exchange, manipulated identity or voyage data can mislead an AIS-dependent operational picture; this is a bounded inference from the documented uses and OFSI definition, not a claim that every anomaly causes an incident.
However, legitimate AIS disablement for safety, poor transmission, sensor or configuration faults, stale manual input and deliberate manipulation are different explanations for missing or incorrect AIS information. AIS is supplementary information and discrepancies should be assessed against radar, visual observations and other available safety information rather than treated as proof of spoofing, purpose or actor.
