Corruption remains a global challenge, with major obstacles hampering effective prevention and enforcement. Key issues include: poorly informed policy decisions and slow, costly investigations; the complex, hidden nature of corruption and its ties to organized crime and money laundering; limited ability to measure corruption trends and assess risks; and the need for advanced, trustworthy technological tools for data-driven analysis.
FALCON addresses these gaps through a comprehensive, data-driven, multi-actor framework for corruption intelligence. It focuses on building actionable indicators and deploying advanced analytics and AI-powered tools to support the entire lifecycle of corruption detection and response. FALCON operates in four key domains: corruption at border crossings, sanction circumvention, public procurement fraud, and conflicts of interest involving politically exposed persons. It involves stakeholders from 6 European countries, including law enforcement, tech providers, academia, and civil society.
FALCON Objectives:
SO1: Analysis of the Corruption Landscape – Analyze the forms, modi operandi, international dimension, impacts and interlinks of corruption, defining and producing improved and actionable indicators, following an interdisciplinary, evidence-based approach
SO2: Data Acquisition and Analytics Tools – Provide technological tools that can underpin the acquisition and analysis of corruption data of various types and from various sources
SO3: Risk Assessment, Investigation and Decision Support Tools – Provide tools and applications tailored to the needs of end-users
SO4: Capacity Building, Framework Co-design and Pilots Implementation – Adopting a multi-actor and iterative approach, co-design the FALCON framework, evaluate project results through pilots, and improve anti-corruption capacity through an innovative training package
SO5: Security, Privacy, Ethics and Legal Aspects and Trustworthy AI – Ensure that security, privacy, eth-ics and legal aspects of the project are continuously monitored and sufficiently addressed, placing emphasis on guaranteeing the robustness and trustworthiness of the proposed AI techniques and tools
SO6: Impact and Policy – Issue policy recommendations based on the project’s results and findings and carry out multi-faceted communication, dissemination and exploitation activities to maximize its impact
FALCON contributes to the Expected Outcomes (EOs) of the FCT-01-05 topic.
EO1: Delivers comprehensive corruption intelligence, including trends, impacts, and cross-border aspects
EO2: Improved risk analysis on new fields offered by the COVID-19 pandemic
EO3: Equips authorities with validated tools and training for effective anti-corruption enforcement
EO4: Enhances cross-border cooperation and knowledge exchange between law enforcement agencies
EO5: Strengthens policymaking with actionable, evidence-based recommendations
Overall FALCON provides completeness, accuracy, and actionability in corruption intelligence. The tools are designed with trustworthiness and explainability in mind, enabling informed decision-making, enhanced law enforcement capabilities, and stronger institutional resilience as well as cross-border collaboration.
