Background
The challenges facing Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) within the digital age are exhaustive and growing exponentially. They regularly use extensive datasets with data from historical cases and on-going investigations. With each new attack by terrorists, cybercriminals, or major organised crime groups, the volume, velocity and variety of incoming data is vast and LEAs must quickly assess the veracity of such content and its links to existing investigations. Investigators cannot keep pace with the analysis required to extract meaningful and actionable intelligence to progress cases efficiently. Furthermore, the offenders who conduct or take part in the most serious crimes often also have the greatest awareness of how to obscure their activities from the authorities and evade detection. Fundamentally, INFINITY aims to assist LEAs with smarter and more advanced tools that provide these hidden links and help LEA’s stay ahead of the curve of technological adoption by criminals and terrorists.
Objectives
INFINITY aims to transform the traditional idea of criminal investigation and analysis using immersive and collaborative environments. This vision will be realised through five Strategic Objectives (SO) which capture the high-level goals at the core of the project. The proposed strategic objectives will enable the realisation of the INFINITY vision into a coherent platform that aims to revolutionise the ways in which LEAs conduct investigative activity.
SO1 – Design and develop an end-to-end, intuitive, interactive and immersive environment for hands-on, concurrent data acquisition, processing, manipulation, analysis and visualisation.
SO1 will enable LEAs to acquire, ingest, federate, join, process, analyse and ultimately visualise investigatory data in immersive reality in a non-linear format. The platform will transform analyst’s workflows, especially in collaborative environments, allowing them to harness data faster, coerce it into actionable intelligence and deliver insights and investigatory outcomes that lead to a safer and more secure Europe.
SO2 – Create and provide a collaborative environment for fast and efficient multi-LEA cooperation and information sharing in major investigations.
SO2 will enhance multi-agency and international LEA cooperation by designing and enabling multi-user collaboration in immersive environments using eXtended reality (XR) technologies.
SO3 – Develop an automated system to assist and enhance digital investigations through AI-driven big data analytics and intelligent human decision support.
SO3 will develop and deploy automated systems that are built-for-purpose to expedite, enhance and assist digital investigations.
SO4 – Conduct and inform research on the effects of immersive environments on cognitive load and well-being alongside social, legal and ethical considerations of manipulation and linking of large datasets.
SO4 will conduct rigorous research on the cognitive effects of immersive AR/VR environments on users’ performance and well-being. As a relatively recent area of research, INFINITY will seek to fill critical knowledge gaps in understanding both the costs and benefits of human engagement with immersive environments.
SO5 – Deploy, pilot and extensively validate the improved investigatory performance realised through the INFINITY platform.
SO5 will focus on deploying, evaluating and validating the INFINITY platform to EU MS LEAs.
