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Unaccompanied Minors Automatic Forensic Age Estimation

Project description

Using artificial intelligence to determine the biological age of minors

Thousands of unaccompanied minors enter the EU each year, many of them undocumented or carrying unreliable documents. Establishing their age is deemed necessary as statutory age limits come with different entitlements and rights. Age assessments, however, can be complex and are conducted differently in each Member State. The EU-funded UMAFAE project has set an ambitious target to develop AI-based algorithms to determine the age of a person. Achieving this, the project will overcome the limitations of current methods in the field that include, amongst others, their subjectivity and lack of sound validation tests.

Objective

In recent years, the European Union is facing an unprecedented wave of mass migration and governments and institutions are struggling to keep up. One particular difficult topic is the age estimation of unaccompanied minors: in 2017 there were more than 20.000. Around 90% of them were between 15 and 17 years old and most of them were undocumented.

Several scientific publications are addressing the issue of age estimation. The focus is usually a specific anatomical region or a set of them. Regions are then analyzed within different medical image modalities to provide an age estimation. However, the limitations of state-of-the-art methods are as follows: i) subjectivity and lack of sound validation tests; ii) the majority is error-prone and time-consuming; iii) limited sample size; iv) vast population-specific differences in the patterns of maturation, and v) lack of reliability and reproducibility.

UMAFAE’s goal is to develop AI-based algorithms that determine the age of a person. This challenging proposal is achievable due to the ER (Dr. De Luca) and supervisor (Dr. Ibáñez) profiles. The ER is one of the most recognized European experts for age estimation, with a vast experience in forensic practice. Dr. Ibáñez is a world pioneer in the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques to Forensic Anthropology, with the largest number of publications and patents in this multidisciplinary field.

The know-how of Panacea’s research team in different fields (from forensic and medical imaging to deep learning and computer vision), the equipment and facilities of the University of Granada (UMAFAE’s partner), together with a large list of data providers (agreements with six Universities) and the support of the main leading international experts in the field (Drs. Cameriere, Schmeling, Viner, Márquez-Grant and Garamendi) compose a unique environment to accomplish these ambitious and groundbreaking objectives.

The project includes a clear plan for technology transfer.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020

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Coordinator

PANACEA COOPERATIVE RESEARCH S COOP
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 172 932,48
Address
C/AVE MARIA 4-6B
24402 PONFERRADA
Spain

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Centro (ES) Castilla y León León
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 172 932,48
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