Tag: OSINT

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data quality en News Projects

Launch of DATA EQUALITY, a project that will fight against discrimination based on data

DATA EQUALITY, a European project that seeks to join forces to combat data-based discrimination, was launched at an online event on 20 September. The Euro-Arab Foundation, together with the Court of Appeal of Venice (coordinator of the project), the Agenfor International Foundation, the Municipality of Murcia, Kentro Merimnas Oikogeneaias Kai Paidiou, Hellenic Police, Keshilli i Larte i Prokurorise, Associazione Nazionale Comuni Italiani Emilia Romagna and Kentro Meleton Asfaleias, will develop a common methodology that will allow different actors to cooperate in the identification and prevention of this problem.

The project targets professionals active in the collection, analysis, use and dissemination of data belonging to the two macro-sectors on which the project focuses: public authorities, in particular local law enforcement agencies and judicial bodies, and civil society organisations (CSOs).

The project will train law enforcement officials, judicial bodies as well as members of CSOs in the use of the new methodology, including its impartial OSINT component and in line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The students will come from the countries participating in the project: Greece, Italy, Spain and Albania.


The role of the Euro-Arab Foundation

The Euro-Arab Foundation will undertake the task of comprehensively assessing the current methodologies employed in the collection, management, analysis and dissemination of discrimination-related data. The aim is to identify the main shortcomings, omissions and existing demands, as well as best practices to be incorporated into a new methodology. It will also explore the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence and open source tools (OSINT) to detect inherent biases in data.

This will require cooperation between public and private bodies, in particular between CSOs and local and judicial authorities, as well as surveys and interviews with law enforcement and judicial professionals and civil society organisations to understand their perspectives, needs and challenges in relation to data collection, management, analysis and sharing.

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EN Unchained Projects

Recognition by the Murcia Local Police for the cooperation with the Euro-Arab Foundation in the UNCHAINED project on Human Trafficking

The sub-inspector of the Local Police of Murcia and responsible for European projects, José Martínez, and the Prosecutor for Human Trafficking and Foreigners in Murcia, Silvia Benito, present a plaque in recognition of the work carried out by the Euro-Arab Foundation team, Jose María González, responsible for the UNCHAINED and BIGOSINT projects, and Karen L. Hough and Daniel Pérez, researchers at the Euro-Arab Foundation.

With this recognition, the Murcia Police, host of the UNCHAINED training, highlights the good synergies that have occurred in the trainings that the Euro-Arab Foundation and Agenfor have developed this past Tuesday in Murcia, on July 11th, as well as in the training of trainers that took place last February in Venice, which they also attended.

This week’s training in Murcia covered topics such as European judicial cooperation in the fight against Trafficking in Human Beings (THB), as well as practical sessions on the use of the technological platforms OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), HUMINT (Human Intelligence) and FAST for data analysis and monitoring of THB. A specific section on Virtual Reality immersion has also been included.

A moment of the training given this week in Murcia to the Local Police.

Combating Trafficking in Human Beings with a money-tracing approach

The dynamic THB nature and the plurality and complexity of its forms make it particularly difficult to investigate. However, these highly lucrative crimes are very difficult to operate without leaving an economic footprint.

In this sense, the European UNCHAINED project aims to improve the capacity of experts and investigators operating within anti-trafficking, organised and financial crime investigation units to use financial enquiries and macro-data analysis in suspected cases of THB.

Training is also an important part of this project, and work has been done on the creation of a European network of experts and trainers who can maintain the training that has been carried out beyond the end of the project itself.

The UNCHAINED project, led by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Padua, is financed by the Internal Security Fund of the European Commission and its consortium is made up of members from Spain, Italy, Greece and Germany.

The researcher Jose María González Riera and Miguel Pérez, inspector of the Local Police of Murcia, holding the plaque awarded to the Euro-Arab Foundation.

Photos: Communication – Local Police Murcia City Council.

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EN Bigosint News Projects

Steering Committee Meeting of BIGOSINT project against Human Trafficking

The partners of BIGOSINT, a project dedicated to the fight against Human Trafficking through Big Data and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) analysis, met on 22 June in Bremen, Germany, for a regular session where they updated on the progress of the different work packages and future activities.

The project, which started in January 2022 and will end in January next year, aims to improve investigations into human trafficking on the internet by analysing how the characteristics of the cyber environment affect the Human Trafficking chain. For that purpose, BIGOSINT combines technological tools such as OSINT and cryptocurrency analysis with the FAST platform to detect existing online markets and networks, collect human-rights compliant digital evidence, share information and develop enforcement countermeasures by leveraging on public-private partnership.

BIGOSINT Consortium members at the steering meeting in Bremen, Germany.

During the meeting there was a review of the project management and coordination carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Trento, coordinator of the project. Each member updated the status of the different work packages, such as the sustained service delivery led by HFÖV, the dissemination strategy, sustainability and transferability of BIGOSINT as well as the integrated FAST platform for cybercrime investigation, management and coordination, led by AGENFOR, or the work package led by the Euro-Arab Foundation, dedicated to understanding the investigation cycle of Human Trafficking. The session will end with an open debate and final conclusions.

Currently, training sessions are being jointly prepared in the framework of the BIGOSINT and UNCHAINED projects, which will take place on 11 and 12 of July in the city of Murcia, Spain, and on 19 July in Bremen, Germany, for law enforcement and judicial officers. The training consists of practical sessions where participants will be trained in the use of the technological tools OSINT and the FAST platform. In addition, a Virtual Reality immersion will be carried out to combat the chain of human trafficking in cyberspace.

After these trainings, the tools involved will be tested for 5 months by the security forces in order to implement them on a daily basis and thus improve their skills in the fight against trafficking in human beings.

For more information about BIGOSINT, visit the official website: https://www.bigosintproject.eu/
And follow the project on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigosint

Categories
EN Standup News Projects

The Euro-Arab Foundation holds STAND-UP training courses at communication and journalism universities

STAND-UP session at the University of Granada (UGR)
STAND-UP session at the University of Granada (UGR)

The first phase of this training has focused on future professionals in this sector, with sessions given last week on 15 and 16 May at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Malaga (UMA) for students of Citizen Journalism and Social Networks of the Journalism Degree, and for students of Audiovisual Programming and Audience Analysis of the Audiovisual Communication Degree at the University of Granada (UGR).

The training package, developed by the Euro-Arab Foundation researchers Lucía García del Moral, José Luis Salido Medina and Daniel Pérez García, focused on three specific blocks: presentation of the results of the monitoring they have carried out in two fields, Islamophobia and extreme right-wing hate speeches, and a third block on alternative narratives as a response to hate speeches from a holistic perspective.

The Euro-Arab Foundation, a member of the STAND-UP consortium and responsible for its Communication package, has initiated this training as it understands that the media are a fundamental element in the chain of information and education of citizens because, according to the European Code of Ethics in Journalism, approved in 1993 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, “the media assume an ethical responsibility towards citizens and society that is necessary to remember at the present time, when information and communication are of great importance for the development of citizens’ personalities as well as for the evolution of society and democratic life“.

One of the training sessions given at the University of Malaga

The main objective of the STAND-UP project is to improve inter-agency cooperation in the fight against hate crime through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-agency model led by public authorities. Among the different actions developed by this project, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, is the design and implementation of training for civil society organisations, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judges on how to report, investigate, prosecute and prevent hate crime and discrimination.

The model developed by the STAND UP project, which involves institutions from four European countries: Spain, France, Greece and Italy, includes technological tools to improve the reporting, investigation, prosecution and prevention of hate speech and hate crime, as well as the exchange of data between different agencies; an established definition of hate crime; standardised templates for reporting hate crime (for law enforcement and civil society organisations) and an inter-institutional manual for victim support.