The proposed solution anticipates that private sector software vendors will develop and sell e-logbook software to fishers. Software vendors will have a profit motive for bearing the cost of developing the solution. Fishers will buy the commercial software solutions because with these solutions they can more efficiently satisfy their record keeping and reporting obligations, and, the e-logbook solutions can add additional value by improving the efficiency of fishing operations. NMFS maintains some control of e-logbook software through a certification program; certified e-logbook software will be required for electronic e-logbook submissions.
Because costs of the e-logbook software (and its e-signature component) are not incurred by the agency, this section only considers costs of the certification program and computer programs to process the electronic submissions and generate receipts.