The question of whether Europe can react quickly to a major crisis without heavy U.S. involvement has moved from a theoretical debate to a practical strategic concern. Russia’s war against Ukraine, growing instability on Europe’s southern flank, and the recent attack on the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus by...
The expansion of the internet has interwoven continents, cultures, and communities, in addition to integrating with the majority of contemporary technologies. The ubiquity of the internet has vastly increased the quantity, value, and accessibility of information, amplifying the important discipline of open-source intelligence (OSINT) to police operations.As the security landscape...
The rise of Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) is significantly transforming the landscape of organised cybercrime. Instead of acting individually, cybercriminals increasingly operate within complex digital ecosystems where specialised actors provide ready-to-use tools, infrastructure and expertise to support cyberattacks. Recent analyses from Europol, including the Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA 2025), highlight how...
The NOTIONES project is in its final year. On 26 January 2026, it was time the for its fifth and final workshop. The Fifth Workshop was held online, gathering expert speakers and over 20 participants from the consortium. The first half of the workshop was designed to hold a main presentation...
1. What is the HATEDEMICS project seeking to achieve? The HATEDEMICS project seeks to address the intersection of online hate speech and disinformation by strengthening prevention, detection, and response mechanisms across the EU. It aims to empower civil society organisations, public authorities, fact-checkers, and young people through a combination of technological...
Across Europe, public authorities, civil society and media professionals are dealing with an increasingly complex mix of online hate speech, conspiracy theories and coordinated disinformation campaigns. The EU-funded project HATEDEMICS is responding to this challenge by developing AI-based technologies and practical resources that help NGOs, fact-checkers, public authorities and young...
The Hellenic Police is a partner in the NOTIONES project, a European network bringing police agencies together to improve the capacity and capability of intelligence functions; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth spoke to Anthoula Bania and Christos Floros, Lieutenant Colonels in the Hellenic Police, about their work with the NOTIONES network,...
The rise of "violence-as-a-service" (VaaS) has emerged as a disturbing trend in the landscape of organized crime, where violent acts—ranging from threats and assaults to contract killings—are outsourced to criminal service providers. Europol’s Operational Taskforce GRIMM, launched in April 2025, is a coordinated international response to this growing threat, with...
Faculty of Security Engineering, University of Žilina organized the 28th international scientific conference Crisis situations solution in specific environment, which took place in Žilina on October 15-16, 2025. The aim of the conference was to present new trends, prevention procedures, experience and good practice, current knowledge gained from scientific research...
On 12 June 2025, Fondazione ICSA proudly hosted the fourth NOTIONES Conference in Rome, marking a pivotal milestone within Work Package 7. Under the compelling theme “Safeguarding Tomorrow: The Role of AI in Security,” the event delivered an intellectually charged forum that explored how artificial intelligence is reshaping the landscape...