On 13 November, INTERCEPTED project held its second seminar on trafficking under the title Strengthening Digital Capabilities to Counter Human Trafficking. This event was co-organised with the ASIT project, which, as INTERCEPTED, aims to prevent and combat online human trafficking.
The event was opened by Antonio de Nicolo, from the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Trieste (Italy), who commented on the main features of both projects and how they contribute to preventing and counteracting the effects of trafficking, underlining the need for cooperation between different entities at different levels in the field of trafficking in human beings.
Karen Hough, a researcher at the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies, offered a panoramic analysis of online trafficking, covering the different ways in which this phenomenon manifests itself and the multiple groups and areas it affects, breaking stereotypes about this serious crime and distinguishing it from other crimes. The speaker also stressed the need for cooperation and presented several illustrative cases, whilst offering an interesting catalogue of good practices and solutions from other projects such as OSINT-RADAR or VANGUARD, in which the Euro-Arab Foundation and KEMEA, members of the INTERCEPTED project, also participate.
In his presentation, Lior Mordechai, Director of Customer Success and Marketing at Falkor Ltd., presented the main features of the forensic technology used in human trafficking investigations, which often makes use of open source intelligence (OSINT). Mordechai showed several examples of tools and methods for detecting online grooming and exploitation.
Finally, Sergio Bianchi, Director General of AGENFOR International addressed different strategies to improve collaboration in trafficking investigations, indicating multi-agency intervention models as well as how to develop unified scenarios for action in public-private partnerships against trafficking.
INTERCEPTED is a research project funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs that aims to intercept online recruitment and propaganda to disrupt the business of human trafficking, by enhancing the digital capabilities of law enforcement and judicial authorities and cooperating with internet service providers. The project is a partnership between the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Trieste, Italy, the Hellenic Police in Greece, Germany, the KEMEA Centre for Security Studies in Greece, the NGO AGENFOR in Italy and the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies in Spain, under the coordination of the University of Public Administration in Bremen (HfÖV). More information can be found on the Euro-Arab Foundation’s project page and on the INTERCEPTED project page.
