Easier data collection to aid border control
As security becomes a major challenge in our era, gathering information is seen as crucial to ensuring security for the world's citizens. The EU has been working fervently to enhance border security in order to curb illegal migration, human trafficking, black market activity and terrorism. In this context, the EU-funded VIRTUOSO (Versatile information toolkit for end-users oriented open sources exploitation) project set out to promote border security through better data processing. Aiming to provide security authorities with an advanced toolkit to gather security-related information, the project developed an open architecture solution to process, select and analyse data. More specifically, the proposed toolkit focuses on acquiring, selecting, extracting and analysing data from images, text, audio and video from public sources for decision makers in the security field. To achieve its aims, the project team built and demonstrated a prototype that equips end users in Europe with a border security platform based on an open source software solution. The platform features plug-and-play functionalities that enable police or border control officers to exploit data from different sources. It ensures maximum interoperability among different information providers and technology solutions. The project helped raising a community of end-users from all across Europe, working both at national and European level. More than 100 individuals gathered at the workshops organised by the project team, where the platform could be demonstrated. Importantly, during the prototype's development the project team studied ethical and legal considerations such as privacy and access of information, integrating them into the solution's software and architecture. Another pivotal achievement is the smart visual representation of the platform's results, helping end users to visualise knowledge in a way that facilitates decision making. Once adopted, the solution will be able to gather information from a myriad of sources – from online blogs to videos – and help authorities advance border security in more intelligent ways.
Keywords
Data collection, border control, border security, illegal migration, terrorism
