TO LIVE OR DROWN - WHEN INFORMATION-SYSTEMS BECOME CRITICAL

The Global Maritime and Distress Safety System (GMDSS) is an informati on system using satellite communications which in 1999 is due to becom e the only system for transmitting distress alerts at sea. However, th e Maritime Rescue and Coordination Centres (MRCCs) have recorded some 300 false alarms from text-entry systems due, it is thought by some ma riners, to the number of keystrokes needed to transmit a distress aler t. After discussing the problem using a walkthrough of a live system, this paper suggests a solution which uses the principle of information integration and which utilizes only one press of a dedicated key.