1st NOTIONES Conference: Emerging Technologies for Law Enforcement and Intelligence Services
How can the existing and emerging technologies enhance or hamper the activities of European intelligence and law enforcement agencies
Date: June 15th, 2022 / 9-17 CET
Location: Stanhope Hotel, Brussels
Registration: by June 2nd
Abstract:
The goal of the NOTIONES conference is to deepen the understanding of existing and emerging technologies in the fields of intelligence and law enforcement. We invite practitioners, policy makers, academia and industry in the fields of intelligence and security to join us it the conference. The program will include a keynote speech, presentations about the NOTIONES project, and a panel discussion. During the conference, the participants can also engage in sessions and workshops.
Tarja Laakkonen
Laurea University of Applied Sciences
tarja.a.laakkonen[at]laurea.fi
Tarja Laakkonen
Laurea University of Applied Sciences
tarja.a.laakkonen[at]laurea.fi
Tarja Laakkonen
Laurea University of Applied Sciences
tarja.a.laakkonen[at]laurea.fi
08:30 – 09:00
Registration and welcome coffee
09:00 – 09:45
Welcome to conference & Presentation on NOTIONES project
09:45 – 10:15
Keynote speaker professor Garik Markarian, Emeritus Professor at Lancaster University, UK and the CEO and Founder of Rinicom Ltd.
Keynote Speaker:
Prof Garik Markarian is Emeritus Professor at Lancaster University, UK and the CEO and Founder of Rinicom Ltd. Prior to joining Lancaster University, he spent over ten years in wireless broadband industry, working in senior executive positions for the UK, USA and Canadian technology Companies. He is one of the founding members of the IEEE802.16 standard, where he chaired a number of working groups and actively contributed to the EUROCAE WG-82 (AeroMAX), EUROCAE WG-72 and WG-115 standards.
Current research interests include Aviation Security, Secure Communication Systems and Artificial Intelligence for Security Applications. He has co-authored over 700 publications, including 42 patents and 5 text books (including “Aviation Security Engineering: A Holistic Approach” and “Counter-UAV Handbook” both with ARTECH House). He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in Armenia and for long time served as the Chair of the IET Professional Panel in Communications. Under his management Rinicom grew up to become one of the world leading technology companies supplying its products to first responders and security agencies around the world. In recognition of these achievements, Rinicom was awarded Queens Awards for Excellence in Business in 2013 and 2018.
Co-presenters:
Prof. Holger Nitsch - the head of the social science department for the University of Applied Sciences for Public Affairs in Bavaria – Department for Policing.
Prof. Ruza Karlovic – Vide Dean for Research, Police University College, Zagreb, Croatia.
Dr. Krishna Chandramouli – Lecturer, Queen Mary University, London, UK.
Keynote
This presentation will be based on the book “Emerging Technologies for Law
Enforcement and Intelligent Services and Associated Social Implications” by G.Markarian, R.Karlovic, H.Nitsch and K.Chandramouli, which is scheduled to be published in Q3 2022 by IEEE Press and Wiley.
Title: “Emerging Technologies for Law Enforcement and Intelligent Services and Associated Social Implications”
Authors: G.Markarian, R.Karlovic, H.Nitsch, K.Chandramouli
Emerging Technologies for Law Enforcement and Intelligent Services and Associated Social Implications
Advancements in scientific technologies have resulted in the need for adopting Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) capabilities as the development of new technologies encourages the development of the phenomenology of criminal offenses in the digital era. In contrast to the classic police tools (such as gun and/or handcuffs) the new approach relies on the emergence of new tools such as mobile devices, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, social media, drones, robots, GIS, just to name a few. As crime in general and cybercrime in particular are becoming more and more sophisticated, it requires a complex mix of both technological and social measures which include prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution. Effective solution to this problem requires continuous synergy and innovation from different scientific fields and their incorporation into the day-to-day practice of LEAs.
Although significant progress has been achieved in developing innovative technologies, incorporation of such technologies into decision making by LEAs is still slow due to several both objective and subjective reasons. In this presentation we will focus on development and application of new technologies that police officers could leverage as a tool for both predictive and intelligence-led investigations and recommends the best practice for incorporation of these technologies into day-to-day activities by LEAs.
10:15 – 11:00
Artificial Intelligence applied to the Intelligence cycle
Type: Presentation
Description: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a growing field of study that has seen increased efforts and results by both industry and academy in the last decade. As new algorithms are developed for decision making, early warning and pattern recognition, new applications of this family of technologies emerge in all operational areas. Intelligence services and Law Enforcement agencies call for the introduction of Artificial Intelligence to support, facilitate and enhance their activities.
To this purpose, NOTIONES will present the state of the art of the Artificial Intelligence algorithms and tools at the service of the Intelligence and Security practitioners, such as illegal trafficking detection, crime prevention and digital forensics automation. The new frontier of Edge Artificial Intelligence will also be explored.
Finally, the constraints posed by the Artificial Intelligence Act will be presented, considering the ethical concerns of the EU policy makers about balancing both civil rights protection and security-related legitimate use of such technologies. Participants in the parallel session will be engaged in a discussion about opportunities and challenges associated with AI technologies.
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break
11:30 – 12:15
Parallel session round 1
Parallel session 1: Beyond the state of Big Data Analysis. Focus on NLU Algorithms for Information Superiority
Type: Presentation (& Workshop)
Description: Big data technologies benefit all fields of intelligence hence the role of big data technologies have increased especially in analytics and decision making. The big data analytics weight to provide precise insight from the data to timely decision making or recognise details of different important phenomena will increase.
Roughly 80% of data is estimated to be in an unstructured form (Unstructured Big Data). If the goal is to improve know-how with insights from domain experts, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cognitive algorithms must be adopted as part of the next big data analytics. They can gather contents coming from different type of sources (on-line and off-line), analysing/fusing them by deep semantic natural language Understanding (NLU) algorithms and discovering insights referred to (f.e) particular threats on a dedicated population during a specific temporal reference and in a targeted GEO location.
From social media to scientific papers, from technical reports to newspapers, and more; everything becomes a useful source of information so that practitioners can find the "information nuggets" that trigger new ideas or activate verifications or interventions. The ability to automatically understand natural language enables new approaches to advanced analysis; even citizens can become “sensors” for their territory by means of analysis of the human factors using avant-garde behavioural algorithms such as emotions and stylometric analysis.
The target is to provide high level TRL AI/Cognitive algorithm with strong tuning on the specific domains and languages (built-in knowledge by domain experts), so that the analytical task can be domain focused, can run automatically and with objectivity on 24/7, going to leave the final action and deduction to humans as added value in the last part of the reasoning process. This can greatly increase the “Intelligence” as “Information Superiority” so going to unveil the “exceptions of the rules”, low signals/low level indicators and finally improve and fastening the quality of decision-making processes.
Parallel session 2: The future of HUMINT in the digital age
Type: Presentation & Workshop
Description: There are serious concerns amongst some national security policymakers who have been critical of defence, intelligence and policing who appear to be under-prioritising, under-resourcing, and neglecting HUMINT in favour of more readily accessible sources of information. The value and contribution of HUMINT to informing the intelligence picture is under threat. In this workshop, followed by a presentation on the state-of-the-art of HUMINT, we seek to address the future challenges of HUMINT by answering: How the value of HUMINT has been degraded in this age of high-technology surveillance? Do recent advances in omnipresent surveillance make HUMINT more challenging? What is the impact of heightened surveillance techniques such as facial recognition technology and other biomarkers on HUMINT? How or should governments respond if their HUMINT operations are to remain viable? Do EU Member States need to revise their current HUMINT doctrine?
Parallel session 3: Activities performed by practitioners within the Intelligence cycle
Type: Presentation & discussion
Description: The goal of this session is to present and discuss with practitioners NOTIONES project findings regarding the analysis of the intelligence cycle, both military and civilian, at the strategic level. Besides, it is expected to discuss examples of the current practice of the implementation of the intelligence cycle in global players like the EU and NATO, as well as national experiences. Finally, the specifics of the application of distinct phases of the intelligence cycle will be discussed in four diverse scenarios: (a) Terrorist attack toward one or several EU Member States; (b) Hybrid strategy to destabilize one or several EU Member States; (c) Mass immigration influx towards the EU borders that affects several EU Member States; (d) Cyber-attack against national critical infrastructure.
12:15 – 13:30
Lunch
13:30 – 14:15
Parallel session round 2
Parallel session 4: State of the art and future developments in OSINT and web analysis
Type: Presentation & discussion
Description: The OSINT ecosystem is strongly driven by the commercial sector where many of the challenges are technologically generic and similar in all fields utilizing OSINT technologies.
Web investigations are becoming increasingly complicated due to a rapid growth in new technologies including darknet platforms such as telegram and TOR.
In this session, we will discuss
- what are the main concepts in relation to OSINT including darknet - incl. various definitions.
- what technologies are available for investigators and LEAs?
- practical cases and illustrations of real life use-cases using relevant technologies.
Parallel session 5: Ethics constraints and considerations within the intelligence and security activities
Type: Round table
Description: One of the main sources of information available to those involved in security and intelligence is the communication metadata which is stored by the communications operators (data retention). Both internationally and within the European Union, each country has its own different legislation regarding storage times and methods of accessing such data. Recent decisions of the European Court of Justice (most recently the C140 / 20 of 5 April 2022) are modifying the jurisprudential framework on the subject, urging the legislators to reform national regulations on data retention. During the workshop we will compare the various national experiences on the subject and discuss the risks for security and intelligence activities deriving from recent decisions.
14:15 – 14:45
Coffee Break
14:45 – 15:30
Working groups
Working Group 1: A Practitioner’s Perspective: Challenges to monitor and collect data from the darknet. A response to WP3/Technologies for Innovation and WP5/Monitoring of Innovation findings as an interactive discussion.
Type: Presentation & Discussion
Description: During the WG1 parallel session, the working group members will present to the audience which technologies and projects discovered by WP3&5 are relevant from a practitioner’s perspective, including which of these findings work to meet their unique needs, and if there are specific areas that pose current or future opportunities which can be explored future projects. An interactive discussion will take place to engage the audience and hear from external participants, which areas they are currently needing technological support to monitor and collect information from the dark web.
Working Group 2: A Practitioner’s Perspective: Technological Needs, Solutions and Improvements to the Analysis Phase of the Intelligence Cycle. A response to WP3/Technologies for Innovation and WP5/Monitoring of Innovation findings as an interactive discussion.
Type: Presentation & discussion
Description: During the WG2 parallel session, the working group members will present to the audience which technologies and projects discovered by WP3&5 are relevant from a practitioner’s perspective, including which of these findings work to meet their unique needs, and if there are specific areas that pose current or future opportunities which can be explored future projects. An interactive discussion will take place to engage the audience and hear from external participants, which areas they are currently needing technological support within the analysis phase of the intelligence cycle.
15:30 – 15:45
Small Break
15:45 – 16:45
Summary and conclusions of the conference
16:45 – 17:00
Closing the conference
17:00 – 19:00
Social dinner and get-together
Keynote Speaker:
Prof Garik Markarian is Emeritus Professor at Lancaster University, UK and the CEO and Founder of Rinicom Ltd. Prior to joining Lancaster University, he spent over ten years in wireless broadband industry, working in senior executive positions for the UK, USA and Canadian technology Companies. He is one of the founding members of the IEEE802.16 standard, where he chaired a number of working groups and actively contributed to the EUROCAE WG-82 (AeroMAX), EUROCAE WG-72 and WG-115 standards.
Current research interests include Aviation Security, Secure Communication Systems and Artificial Intelligence for Security Applications. He has co-authored over 700 publications, including 42 patents and 5 text books (including “Aviation Security Engineering: A Holistic Approach” and “Counter-UAV Handbook” both with ARTECH House). He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in Armenia and for long time served as the Chair of the IET Professional Panel in Communications. Under his management Rinicom grew up to become one of the world leading technology companies supplying its products to first responders and security agencies around the world. In recognition of these achievements, Rinicom was awarded Queens Awards for Excellence in Business in 2013 and 2018.
Co-presenters:
Prof. Holger Nitsch – the head of the social science department for the University of Applied Sciences for Public Affairs in Bavaria – Department for Policing.
Prof. Ruza Karlovic – Vide Dean for Research, Police University College, Zagreb, Croatia.
Dr. Krishna Chandramouli – Lecturer, Queen Mary University, London, UK.
Keynote
This presentation will be based on the book “Emerging Technologies for Law Enforcement and Intelligent Services and Associated Social Implications” by G.Markarian, R.Karlovic, H.Nitsch and K.Chandramouli, which is scheduled to be published in Q3 2022 by IEEE Press and Wiley.
Title: “Emerging Technologies for Law Enforcement and Intelligent Services and Associated Social Implications”
Authors: G.Markarian, R.Karlovic, H.Nitsch, K.Chandramouli
Emerging Technologies for Law Enforcement and Intelligent Services and Associated Social Implications
Advancements in scientific technologies have resulted in the need for adopting Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) capabilities as the development of new technologies encourages the development of the phenomenology of criminal offenses in the digital era. In contrast to the classic police tools (such as gun and/or handcuffs) the new approach relies on the emergence of new tools such as mobile devices, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, social media, drones, robots, GIS, just to name a few. As crime in general and cybercrime in particular are becoming more and more sophisticated, it requires a complex mix of both technological and social measures which include prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution. Effective solution to this problem requires continuous synergy and innovation from different scientific fields and their incorporation into the day-to-day practice of LEAs.
Although significant progress has been achieved in developing innovative technologies, incorporation of such technologies into decision making by LEAs is still slow due to several both objective and subjective reasons. In this presentation we will focus on development and application of new technologies that police officers could leverage as a tool for both predictive and intelligence-led investigations and recommends the best practice for incorporation of these technologies into day-to-day activities by LEAs.