On 21 May 2019, the World Customs Organization (WCO), in partnership with DigitalGlobe, hosted a Discovery Day in Brussels on geodata applications for Customs.
The event provided the opportunity for three communities to come together, namely Customs, the public institutions responsible for earth observation programmes and the geospatial intelligence industry.
Some 60 participants were able to share their views on various subjects, such as the European Union’s Copernicus Programme - which provides free-of-charge high-resolution satellite images - the operations conducted by SatCen (the European Union Satellite Centre), the use of open-source data and the application of artificial intelligence to the monitoring of border areas.
A variety of working solutions as well as solutions currently in development with the WCO Secretariat were introduced in a number of presentations. Practical examples of the use of geodata applications by Customs were also discussed by the representatives of United Kingdom and Nigeria Customs respectively.