The Merchant Mariner Credential (MMC) is a credential issued by the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

in accordance with guidelines of the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) to

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

seafarer A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

s in order to show evidence of a mariner's qualifications. It is the standard documentation required for all crew members of U.S. ships for all vessels required to operate with a licensed

Master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

or Operator, regardless of size. The MMC replaced the

Merchant Mariner's Document {{unreferenced, date=June 2013 __NOTOC__ Under the Seafarers' Identity Documents Convention, 1958, countries with a Merchant Navy or Merchant Marine require identifying credentials for their mariners. The Merchant Mariner's Document (MMD) or Z-car ...

, merchant mariner license,

Certificate of Registry Certificate may refer to: * Birth certificate * Marriage certificate * Death certificate * Gift certificate * Certificate of authenticity, a document or seal certifying the authenticity of something * Certificate of deposit, or CD, a financial pro ...

, and STCW Certificate.

Origin

The MMC contains professional qualification information previously listed on a merchant mariner license or Certificate of Registry as an officer endorsement, while information previously listed on a Merchant Mariner's Document is included as a rating endorsement. STCW endorsements are still listed as STCW endorsements. The combining of the mariner credentials was due to the requirement for U.S. mariners to obtain the

Transportation Worker Identification Credential The Transportation Worker Identification Credential (or TWIC) program is a Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Coast Guard initiative in the United States. The TWIC program provides a tamper-resistant biometric credential to maritime w ...

(or TWIC), a

biometric Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...

security card issued by the

Transportation Security Administration The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within, and connecting to the United States. It was created ...

(TSA) that all workers in the transportation industry are required to obtain if their work involves access to a security-sensitive area. This reduced the number of documents needed to satisfy manning requirements from five to two: The TWIC and MMC. Previous to April 15, 2009, applications for credentials still had to be made in person at an REC to provide fingerprints and proof of identity. Now, TSA collects the fingerprints and proof of identity and forwards the information to the Coast Guard's National Maritime Center (NMC). Mariners still have to visit a Regional Exam Center if they are required to take an exam. The first Merchant Mariner Credential was issued on May 7, 2009, at a meeting of the Towing Safety Advisory Committee. As of early 2015, all active U.S. merchant mariners had been issued MMCs. The credential was criticized by several groups upon introduction. One organization said that the consolidation reduced the merchant marine officer license, a certificate of professional achievement and status, into a work permit. Another group suggested that the consolidation, together with STCW requirements, the TWIC requirement, and physical evaluation standards, stressed the skilled labor pool, posed too much of an administrative burden, and threatened mariner recruitment, training and retention.

Physical description

The MMC is in the format of a traditional

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...

book. Like a passport, the cover is imprinted with the Great Seal of the United States and the text ''United States of America''. Unlike a passport, the cover is red-maroon in color (rather than the four colors used for US passports or travel documents: dark blue, black, maroon, and gray) and the text ''Merchant Mariner Credential'' appears in place of ''Passport''. Also, the cover does not hold a

contactless smart card A contactless smart card is a contactless credential whose dimensions are credit-card size. Its embedded integrated circuits can store (and sometimes process) data and communicate with a terminal via NFC. Commonplace uses include transit tickets ...

chip as do newer

biometric passport A biometric passport (also known as an e-passport or a digital passport) is a traditional passport that has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip which contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the pa ...

s (ePassport). The MMC has twenty pages, exclusive of the front and back covers, sequentially numbered like the visa pages of a passport. Basic identity document data is page 3. The MMC is not a passport, but it is a

Seafarer's Identity Document Seafarers' Identity Documents Convention, 1958 is an International Labour Organization Convention. It was established in 1958, with the preamble stating: Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to the reciprocal or in ...

and the format of the data page complies with the

ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international a ...

''Machine Readable Travel Documents'' specifications for

machine-readable passport A machine-readable passport (MRP) is a machine-readable travel document (MRTD) with the data on the identity page encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine-readable travel documents in the 1980s. Mos ...

s. Rather than the document type of P used with US government issued passports, a document type of PG is used for MMCs. License information in the form of domestic and international endorsements begin on page 4 of the MMC and continue as many pages required to list competencies held by the mariner. Domestic ( 46 CFR 10) and International (

STCW International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) sets minimum qualification standards for masters, officers and watch personnel on seagoing merchant ships and large yachts. STCW was adopte ...

Convention) license information are printed on separate pages. When the mariner gains a new competency while holding an already valid MMC, the new competency is printed on a sticker which is placed on the next available blank page in the MMC, much like a

visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

in a passport. Thus new MMCs are only produced for original and renewals; raises in grade, removal or limitations, or addition of endorsements do not require a new credential. The mariner's reference number and the MMC's serial number are printed on the bottom of every page containing endorsement information and on all stickers issued to be added. The endorsement pages are overprinted with a transparent plastic 'watermark' with the words 'Merchant Mariner Credential' and the seal of the United States. MMC serial numbers are nine digits long, as required for a passport book, and padded with leading zeros. The MMC has a clear plastic holder for the mariner's TWIC card on the inside of the back cover. The MMC is considered a form of REAL ID and is therefore accepted as proof of identity by the TSA.

References

External links

USCG National Maritime Center
- Official website for MMC info
U.S. Coast Guard's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Merchant Mariner Credential
United States admiralty law United States Merchant Marine Professional titles and certifications Identity documents of the United States

Origin

Physical description

See also

References

External links