One type of electronic monitoring of Alaska groundfish catch has been conducted by Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission using an electronic monitoring (EM) system to collect catch accounting data using video and sensor data of selected fishing vessels in Alaska. Video recordings of fish catch composition aboard selected vessels are collected are stored on hard drives in an effort to track vessel catch and discards to accurately debit discarded catch from the individual fishing quota (IFQ) account of each account holder. This information is collected in place of the sampling for species composition of the catch conducted by human at-sea catch monitors or observers. Reviewers of the videos enter data from the drives and maintain data integrity and quality.

Raw, reviewed electronic monitoring data collected by Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission must have additional data items added to it to conform to the standard format of data normally collected by Alaska observers in order for the data to be processed by catch accounting of the NMFS Alaska Regional Office. The EM_OBSINT tables contain these transformed data.

These data, like data collected by Alaska groundfish observers, and transmitted electronically to the AFSC and are the source data for those interfaces used for fishery management, scientific inquiry and fishing activity monitoring by industry.