EU-funded project to boost identification capabilities for law enforcement with AI

The European Union is seeing a new AI-powered security security project focusing on developing techniques that improve identification with the help of biometric data and other information. Its goals are to establish an EU-wide data collection repository for threats and boost the investigation and forensic capabilities of European law enforcement organizations – including Interpol and Europol.

The Identify Attributes Matrix Initiative (IAMI) is co-funded by the EU and run by the Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC) at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. The project has 18 participants including biometrics-focused companies Idemia and NEC, research institutions and government departments.

IAMI focuses on creating an Identity-Attributes-Matrix (IAM), a “3D construct” that covers various “identity-related attributes,” including “biometric data, non-biometric identity-related data and analytical results.”

In more layman’s terms, the core of the project is to combine multiple sources of data related to someone’s identity that were collected during an investigation. This includes not just biometric witness statements, CCTV footage, information from seized devices, financial information, open-source data and more.

Some of this data may be biometric and some not, CENTRIC’s researcher Helen Gibson explains for Biometric Update.

“One of the biggest challenges faced by law enforcement is to understand when these different pieces of information might refer to the same person, who that person is and how to establish that with confidence and within the boundaries of the law,” says Gibson. “The core of the project is to develop techniques that improve and speed up that process.”

CENTRIC will support regulatory compliance for the AI components of the project, providing the evaluation framework for the pilots and training. The research institution is funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Among its Advisory Board members is former UK Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner Fraser Sampson. In an article published last week, Sampson argues that building more nuclear power facilities will require a layered system of security, including capabilities from projects such as the Identity-Attributes-Matrix (IAM).

Article Topics

AI  |  biometric identification  |  biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  CENTRIC  |  EU  |  Europe  |  forensics  |  IDEMIA  |  Identity Attributes Matrix Initiative (IAMI)  |  law enforcement  |  NEC