Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CRiTERIA (Comprehensive data-driven Risk and Threat Assessment Methods for the Early and Reliable Identification, Validation and Analysis of migration-related risks)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-02-28
Migration implies several societal opportunities and challenges. The migration process itself is coupled with a number of interrelated risks and threats -such as human trafficking and public health threats - for all stakeholders including border agencies, NGOs and the migrants themselves. This situation implies a need for more cross-sectoral, transdisciplinary and cross-country cooperation in all risk management phases. Existing risk analysis models have a number of shortcomings such as limited consideration of humanitarian aspects, which prevent the unfolding of their full potential.
The CRiTERIA project seeks to strengthen and expand existing risk analysis methods, by introducing novel approaches, such as identifying risk factors from qualitative evidence, building composite indicators, incorporating risk interaction and risk cascading assessments and consolidating the human security and human rights dimensions of border security. Strong and accurate risk and vulnerability analysis models have to be backed by effective intelligent analysis technology and tools. In CRiTERIA, we will develop and evaluate advanced analysis technologies and tools that are tailored to the new comprehensive risk and vulnerability indicators of the methodology.
In summary, the goal of the CRiTERIA project is a novel, comprehensive but feasible and human-rights sensitive risk and vulnerability analysis framework for border agencies and other stakeholders, which backs a novel multi-perspective risk and vulnerability analysis methodology with multi-source, multi-lingual analysis technologies and tools for serving the complex indicators of the methodology and for making them accessible in a verifiable and understandable way. The methodology will be developed and validated in close collaboration with practitioners from border agencies.
For achieving its goal, five objectives have been defined: 1) a refined multi-perspective risk, vulnerability and threat understanding; 2) tools for effective cross-media and multi-source risk and vulnerability analysis including validation support; 3) awareness for the evolutionary character of the realm of observation; 4) integrative and impactful solutions, which can be easily adopted; 5) actionable insights, which help decision makers and border agencies to counteract risks as well as the negative impacts resulting from them; and 6) legally compliant and societally acceptable solutions.
The CRiTERIA project seeks to strengthen and expand existing risk analysis methods, by introducing novel approaches, such as identifying risk factors from qualitative evidence, building composite indicators, incorporating risk interaction and risk cascading assessments and consolidating the human security and human rights dimensions of border security. Strong and accurate risk and vulnerability analysis models have to be backed by effective intelligent analysis technology and tools. In CRiTERIA, we will develop and evaluate advanced analysis technologies and tools that are tailored to the new comprehensive risk and vulnerability indicators of the methodology.
In summary, the goal of the CRiTERIA project is a novel, comprehensive but feasible and human-rights sensitive risk and vulnerability analysis framework for border agencies and other stakeholders, which backs a novel multi-perspective risk and vulnerability analysis methodology with multi-source, multi-lingual analysis technologies and tools for serving the complex indicators of the methodology and for making them accessible in a verifiable and understandable way. The methodology will be developed and validated in close collaboration with practitioners from border agencies.
For achieving its goal, five objectives have been defined: 1) a refined multi-perspective risk, vulnerability and threat understanding; 2) tools for effective cross-media and multi-source risk and vulnerability analysis including validation support; 3) awareness for the evolutionary character of the realm of observation; 4) integrative and impactful solutions, which can be easily adopted; 5) actionable insights, which help decision makers and border agencies to counteract risks as well as the negative impacts resulting from them; and 6) legally compliant and societally acceptable solutions.
The CRiTERIA project has made major progress towards its goal. As an important foundation, major effort has been invested in better understanding the risk analysis practices of CRiTERIA end users and external stakeholders. Subsequently a framework was prepared for supporting the improvement of these practices. As a basis for the risk analysis methods, a mapping of source has been created for the open source information required for the risk analysis. The collection and organization of risk factors for the risk analysis method was driven by a set of jointly identified project use cases. Furthermore, the first draft of the methodology for the composite indicator for vulnerability of migrants (Human Security Filter) was developed. This indicator will complement the existing CIRAM risk analysis framework by putting a larger emphasis on the wellbeing of migrants and human security aspects.
Major progress has also been made in method and component development for effective data and cross-media analysis in support of risk analysis. For visual media analysis, we developed methods that enable searching within large collections using free-text queries. Work was also performed towards the deeper analysis of textual data. For the detection and analysis of narratives, our initial focus was on events and stance detection. Finally, we also started to work on network-based analyses for the detection of risk factors. For explainable evidence validation, which provides the basis for decision support in risk analysis, a variety of methods have been developed. This includes image manipulation detection, an interpretable open-domain fact-checking model and methods to identify cause-effect relations in news articles. Furthermore, we worked on identifying and representing uncertainties during evidence validation tailored to risk analysis.
A first integrated version of the CRiTERIA platform has been developed, which is equipped with two powerful UIs (tools): the CRiTERIA Dasboard, which supports the exploration phase in risk analysis and the risk analysis tool for the risk analsis and validation phase.
The consideration of legal, ethical and societal aspects is also an important part of the project work. Here, the ethical and legal issues arising from the project have been identified and assessed. This has been complemented by a human rights analysis of the potential effects from a human rights perspective of the technical tools and processes being built in the project resulting in a human rights checklist. For addressing societal issues, a series of interviews with diverse stakeholders have been performed with a focus on societal acceptance.
Starting early in the project, a common communication, dissemination and exploitation strategy was developed and activities started including the preparation of two events. In addition, first scientific publications have been achieved based on CRiTERIA results and project results have been presented at different types of events.
Major progress has also been made in method and component development for effective data and cross-media analysis in support of risk analysis. For visual media analysis, we developed methods that enable searching within large collections using free-text queries. Work was also performed towards the deeper analysis of textual data. For the detection and analysis of narratives, our initial focus was on events and stance detection. Finally, we also started to work on network-based analyses for the detection of risk factors. For explainable evidence validation, which provides the basis for decision support in risk analysis, a variety of methods have been developed. This includes image manipulation detection, an interpretable open-domain fact-checking model and methods to identify cause-effect relations in news articles. Furthermore, we worked on identifying and representing uncertainties during evidence validation tailored to risk analysis.
A first integrated version of the CRiTERIA platform has been developed, which is equipped with two powerful UIs (tools): the CRiTERIA Dasboard, which supports the exploration phase in risk analysis and the risk analysis tool for the risk analsis and validation phase.
The consideration of legal, ethical and societal aspects is also an important part of the project work. Here, the ethical and legal issues arising from the project have been identified and assessed. This has been complemented by a human rights analysis of the potential effects from a human rights perspective of the technical tools and processes being built in the project resulting in a human rights checklist. For addressing societal issues, a series of interviews with diverse stakeholders have been performed with a focus on societal acceptance.
Starting early in the project, a common communication, dissemination and exploitation strategy was developed and activities started including the preparation of two events. In addition, first scientific publications have been achieved based on CRiTERIA results and project results have been presented at different types of events.
Progress beyond the state of the art is expected and has already been made in in the fields of visual media analysis and annotation, trend detection and prediction, visual media verification, detection of narratives, information extraction and linking, automatic speech recognition, risk analysis as well as in the field of privacy and data protection.
The project is creating outcomes on different levels: a) methodology for comprehensive and multi-perspective risk and vulnerability analysis; b) innovative and effective IT and AI methods in support of the CRiTERIA approach for risk, vulnerability and threat analysis; and c) the legally compliant and societally acceptable CRiTERIA system, a flexible and extensible platform and tools. Furthermore, best practices and actionable insights will be made available.
The results of CRiTERIA are expected to create in impact in relevant areas: They will provide knowledge and evidence-based support to policy developments and will help to better manage the complexity of migration-related issues and the resulting risks and vulnerability. The design of the project ensures that both a) a comprehensive picture of the complexities is taken and b) the information is filtered and aggregated to help in managing the complexities and to create actionable insights. The development and use of composite indicators will ensure that the threats identified by the system can be better categorised and prioritised.
As a broader socio-economic impact, CRiTERIA fosters a risk understanding (based on the multi-disciplinary approach) that takes into consideration all stakeholders at risk in the migration process including the migrants themselves. This can change the understanding of the migration process, related vulnerabilities and required priorities in the mind set of border agencies, policy makers and the general public.
The project is creating outcomes on different levels: a) methodology for comprehensive and multi-perspective risk and vulnerability analysis; b) innovative and effective IT and AI methods in support of the CRiTERIA approach for risk, vulnerability and threat analysis; and c) the legally compliant and societally acceptable CRiTERIA system, a flexible and extensible platform and tools. Furthermore, best practices and actionable insights will be made available.
The results of CRiTERIA are expected to create in impact in relevant areas: They will provide knowledge and evidence-based support to policy developments and will help to better manage the complexity of migration-related issues and the resulting risks and vulnerability. The design of the project ensures that both a) a comprehensive picture of the complexities is taken and b) the information is filtered and aggregated to help in managing the complexities and to create actionable insights. The development and use of composite indicators will ensure that the threats identified by the system can be better categorised and prioritised.
As a broader socio-economic impact, CRiTERIA fosters a risk understanding (based on the multi-disciplinary approach) that takes into consideration all stakeholders at risk in the migration process including the migrants themselves. This can change the understanding of the migration process, related vulnerabilities and required priorities in the mind set of border agencies, policy makers and the general public.