Advanced versatile artificiaAdvanced versatile artificial intelligence technologies and interconnected cross-sectoral fully-operational national focal points for combating illicit firearms trafficking

Ceasefire targets the development of a highly innovative, holistic, multi-disciplinary, high-tech and versatile approach for significantly increasing/broadening the operational capabilities of EU Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in their struggle to detect, analyze and track cross-border illicit firearms trafficking related activities. In particular, Ceasefire efforts will concentrate on the following major driving axes: a) The development of advanced Artificial Intelligence (ΑΙ) technologies for significantly facilitating the everyday work of the involved practitioners, and b) The establishment of fully-operational National Focal Points (NFPs), by targeting to alleviate from current organizational, operational, cooperation, legal, cross-jurisdictional, trans-border and information exchange challenges. The former corresponds to a wide set of AI-enabled tools, including solutions for cyber patrolling, Web data gathering, on-the-spot detection of firearms, advanced Big Data analytics, cryptocurrency analysis, large-scale information fusion, visual analytics and firearms-related intelligence collection. On the other hand, particular attention will be given towards defining models, protocols and procedures for making NFPs fully functional, complemented by activities for mapping the various legal frameworks (within different countries) and procedures (within different agencies) for harmonizing investigations, cooperation, lawful evidence collection and forensics analysis. The development of efficient information sharing mechanisms among LEA (police, border guard, customs), judicial and forensics authorities will further reinforce the system capabilities. Moreover, the tasks of Ceasefire will complement the objectives and activities of the EU Policy Cycle (EMPACT) – Firearms (where partner MIRPN acts as Driver and partner FMI as Co-driver), while continuous guidance from the European Firearms Experts (EFE) group (where partner PSP acts as the Chair) is foreseen.