Preventing and fighting illicit material and dangerous substances in postal/courier services flows in EU areas by ensuring efficiency, speed and continuity in screening and detection tasks. Currently, custom, police and courier authorities involve a range of screening systems in place but there is still much to do in terms of detection efficacy and creation of intelligence towards risk and threat identification. On top of that, criminals or smugglers exploit the multitude of flows and easily spot security gaps that allow parcels/letters to be transported within or across EU with relative ease.
iFLOWS proposes a unique approach to assist customs, police and postal/courier services in preventing and detecting such crimes and will design, develop, integrate, test and validate a novel multi-tier synergistic Toolkit in enhancing intelligence extraction, screening and detection operations of illicit material and hazardous substances within courier and postal flows moving across and within EU borders.
iFLOWS delivers a tailored to such operations C4I that boosts preparedness and cooperation between police, customs and courier/postal services, enhanced Intelligence in terms of threats, risks and suspicious flows, novel detection technologies (i.e. THz Scanning system and UWB Scanner) featuring enhanced detection capabilities over a large span of illicit material and substances, coupled with advanced image-based feature extraction in combination to legacy systems optimise the detection process without interrupting the postal/courier flows for:
Improved detection of threats and dangerous and illicit goods by practitioners and operators within post and parcel flows, without disruption to the flow
Improved capacity of practitioners and operators to deny the misuse of the postal and parcel service by criminal or terrorist group to move items;
Improved risk assessment, preparedness and reaction capacities in the postal and parcel service;
and
Improved security of EU land and air borders, as well as sea borders and maritime environment, infrastructures & activities, against accidents, natural disasters & security challenges such as illegal trafficking, piracy and potential terrorist attacks, cyber & hybrid threats;
Improved border crossing experience for travellers and border authorities staff, while maintaining security and monitoring of movements across air, land and sea EU external borders, supporting the Schengen space, reducing illegal movements of people and goods across those borders and protecting fundamental rights of travellers;
Improved customs and supply chain security though better prevention, detection, deterrence and fight of illegal activities involving flows of goods across EU external border crossing points and through the supply chain, minimising disruption to trade flows
