Discovering criminal networks and identifying their members is one of the primary aspects of LEAs' mission. ROXANNE will contribute towards this goal by bridging the strengths of speech and language technologies (SLTs), visual analysis (VA) and network analysis (NA). If funded, ROXANNE will achieve a significant increase in the speed of investigation processes and an improvement in identification of individuals by means of speech, in the scope of criminal cases where large amounts of lawfully intercepted communications (with multilingual attributes) are analysed. The technical development will be centred around the ROXANNE platform, which will enhance criminal network analysis capabilities by providing a framework for extracting evidence and actionable intelligence based on speech, language and video technologies. The intention is not to replace humans but automate time-consuming tasks, and support LEA decision-making. Its early version will offer preliminary SLT, VA and NA capabilities to collect end-user feedback. The final version will provide multilingual, probabilistic tools interfacing SLT and NA technologies, boosted by natural language processing (NLP) and relation analysis in the synoptic criminal activity graph. ROXANNE will achieve full compliance with relevant INTERPOL and EU legal and ethical frameworks, including innovative approaches to data protection management such as privacy by design. Special efforts will be expended to ensure ROXANNE outcomes achieve widespread adoption by law enforcement. The effort will be enhanced through a series of education and awareness campaigns and the direct involvement of LEAs from nine European countries, that will test our solutions on real case data. In addition, ROXANNE partner INTERPOL and EUROPOL (member of the External Advisory Board) will provide advice and guidance. The consortium has 24 partners with complementary skills, including leaders in key technology areas impacting criminal investigations.

TENSOR will provide LEAs a platform that facilitates the biometric evidence extraction, sharing and storage in cross border environments allowing them to share best practices in an automated, robust, secure, privacy-preserving and scalable manner. In addition, the full potential of biometrics technologies will be exploited and their fusion in case of partial evidence gathered in the crime scenes by forensic institutes strengthening their acceptance in the court of justice. More particularly, TENSOR will equip security practitioners with novel tools focusing on (a) Extraction of biometrics and other more or less distinctive features validated in forensic conditions that assist LEAs in identification, identity verification, intelligence and investigation processes and can be leveraged to unlock criminals’ mobile devices; (b) Sharing of biometrics through secure, automated, scalable exchange of biometric intelligence and court-proof evidence among LEAs in a cross-border manner, enhancing interoperability among legacy systems owned by security practitioners and Forensic Institutes; and (c) Storage of biometrics in a privacy-preserving way through a biometric data protection mechanism enabling revocability of biometric templates. TENSOR will also introduce the one-of-its-kind European Biometric Data Space creating a common ground among LEAs, Forensic Institutes and Security Researchers assisting in the faster adoption of modern biometric solutions.

EU-HYBNET is a Pan-European network of security practitioners, stakeholders, academics, industry players, and SME actors across EU collaborating with each other in ever increasing numbers to counter hybrid threats. EU-HYBNET aims to build an empowered, sustainable network beyond the scope of the project through its on-going association with a key partner, The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, and it will: define common requirements that can fill knowledge gaps, deal with performance needs, and enhance capabilities of innovation endeavours; monitor significant developments in research and innovation; deliver recommendations for uptake and industrialisation of the most promising innovations that address the needs of practitioners, and determine associated priorities for standardisation; establish conditions for enhanced interaction among its members; and persistently strive to increase its membership and continually build network capacity through knowledge exchange incl. exercises. EU-HYBNET's principal objectives align with the H2020 SEC-SU-GM01-2019 call and are of crucial relevance to it. A technology and innovations watch, facilitated by scientific research, will ensure smooth execution of searching, monitoring, identifying and assessing innovations both under development or already proven, including the level of technology readiness for uptake or industrialisation. EU-HYBNET will bring together practitioners and stakeholders to identify and define their most urgent requirements for countering hybrid threats by undertaking an in-depth analysis of gaps and needs and prioritising those that are crucial to address through effective research and innovation initiatives, including arranging training and exercise events to test the most promising innovations (technical and social) which will lead to creation of a roadmap for success and solid recommendations for uptake, industrialisation and standarisation across the European Union.

A project to build and maintain an innovation-driven network of LEAs combating cybercrime - accelerating the EU’s ability to counteract growing pressures of cyber threats. Heeding advice from EUROPOL’s EC3 flagship report Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment, CYCLOPES create synergies between LEAs from MS and connect industry and academia by stimulating and sustaining dialogue on pressing security matters threatening the stability of Europe and Citizen safety. Dedicated teams will scour markets, identifying solutions and research activities to highlight actions and innovative products to assist LEAs tackle the complexity of cybercrime. Besides technology, the project supports continued development of LEAs, working closely with practitioners to define current capacities and elicit capability gaps and requirements in crucial areas: procedures, training, legal and standardisation. Consequently, other objectives are: identification of priorities for standardisation; recommendations for innovation uptake and implementation; social, ethical and legal reports providing guidance and training suggestions for cybercrime investigators; dissemination of results through workshops, conferences, webinars, publications, policy papers and media. All outcomes will be suitably considered for exploitation - helping to propel the EU in the fight against cybercrime. Practitioners’ workshops are a driving force behind the project and cover three 3 domains: 1) cybercrime affecting people directly, 2) cybercrime affecting systems, 3) digital forensics. The project is to synchronise with other activities conducted by relevant parties EUROPOL, INTERPOL, CEPOL, ECTEG, ENISA; networks: ENLETS, ENFSI, I-LEAD, iLEAnet, EU-HYBNET, covering topics that go beyond efforts of these initiatives and preventing duplication. This also applies to projects where activities align with CYCLOPES (i-ProcureNet, Stairs4Security) and future projects funded by the EC, especially in the area of AI.

The use of the Internet to distribute CSEM is an abhorrent crime. Referrals from Online Service Providers are key to fighting CSE. OSPs, detection technologies and users reporting suspicious material are improving. However, this leads to an increase in the sheer volume of referrals coupled with the increase in the distribution of CSEM online that is pushing MS LEAs to their limits and affecting their their capacity to prevent harm to infants and children, rescue those in immediate danger, and investigate and prosecute perpetrators. The NCMEC process has improved LEA capability. But, a typical CSE case contains 1-3 TBs of video, 1–10 million images. Limited human resources, manual analysis and the 4,000% increase in referrals since 2014 obligates a new approach. GRACE will apply proven techniques in ML to the referral and analysis process while embracing the very technical, ethical and legal challenges unique to fighting CSE. GRACE will leverage resources already in place at EUROPOL and its 9 MS LEAs and attempt to provide results early, frequently and flexibly, prioritising easy wins in the research plan (e.g. deduplication). By applying Federated Learning approach to the challenge of optimising analysis and information flow, GRACE will enable cooperation between LEAs in improving their own capabilities and harness experiential knowledge. The results of GRACE will be handed back to EUROPOL and MS LEAs for unrestricted use in their missions, helping to ensure their future technological autonomy.