Consortium
KEMEA
The Center for Security Studies (KEMEA) is a think tank on homeland security policies and an established research center since 2005 within the Hellenic Ministry of Citizen Protection aiming to support security policy implementations in Greece at a strategic level.
KEMEA
Center for Security Studies
ITI - CERTH
The Information Technologies Institute (ITI) has been a founding member of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) since 2000. The participating teams of CERTH-ITI in CTC are the Multimodal Data Fusion and Analytics Group (M4D) of the Multimedia Knowledge and Social Media Analytics Lab (MKLab) and the Visual Computing Lab (VCL).
CERTH - iti
Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas / Information Technologies Institute
The Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH) is the largest research centre in Northern Greece and consists of the five institutes, including the Information Technologies Institute (ITI).
The Information Technologies Institute (ITI) of CERTH was founded in 1998 as a non-profit organisation under the auspices of the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRT), with its head office located in Thessaloniki, Greece. Since 2000 it has been a founding member of the GSRT-supervised CERTH.
The two participating laboratories, namely MKLab and VCL are presented below:
The Multimedia Knowledge and Social Data Analytics laboratory (MKLab) is one of the largest labs at ITI and has significant security research experience. It has authored over 180 publications in scientific journals, over 60 books and book chapters and over 580 presentations to international conferences. Regarding CTC project a subgroup of MKLAb is specifically involved, namely Multimodal Data Fusion and Analytics (M4D). M4D has scientific expertise on the discovery and mining of heterogeneous multilingual and multimedia (Surface/Deep/Dark) Web resources, social media monitoring, OSINT, semantic integration of heterogeneous resources, as well as activity recognition and object detection in multimedia, including surveillance videos. M4D also has a wide experience in machine learning and deep learning methods, semantic reasoning, analysis and interoperability, multimedia forensics, topic/event/community detection, and visual analytics. In recent years, the team has coordinated and participated in more than 60 European and National research projects as part of the MKLab, many of them in the security domain. Indicatively the list of relevant projects includes ODYSSEUS (H2020 IA, 2021- 2024), STARLIGHT (H2020 IA, 2021-2025), INFINITY (H2020 RIA, 2020-2023), CONNEXIONs (H2020 RIA, 2018-2022), PREVISION (H2020 RIA, 2019-2021), AIDA (H2020 IA, 2020-2023), & PROPHETS (H2020 RIA, 2018-2021); the complete list can be found at: https://mklab.iti.gr/projects/ . The team also exploits the results of European projects through its spin-off company Infalia (https://www.infalia.com/). The latest news of the MKLab can be also found on social media: Facebook, Twitter & Linkedln .
The Visual Computing Lab (VCL), focusing on high quality research on computer vision and machine learning, has significant experience and long-lasting presence in security research projects (FP7, H2020 and currently on Horizon Europe consortia). The Visual Computing Lab is continuously working in improving components and services in the areas of counterterrorism, counter UAV, Critical Infrastructure protection, CCTV systems and surveillance, forensics analysis, antitrafficking, fire detection and 3D simulation, first responder support. VCL has significant scientific expertise in video retrieval from surveillance systems (CCTV), video event and anomaly detection, improving images and videos with super resolution components, people tracking and re-identification in multiple cameras and large video databases, Novel Deep Learning techniques to process multiple sensor modalities (radar, infrared, acoustic, 3D camera and video) for detecting and tracking UAVs, detection of hidden propaganda content, analysis of crime reports and crime spatiotemporal forecasting, VCL, with more than 85 people (senior researchers, Post-Doc fellows, PhD candidates and research associates) actively contributing in research and more than 60 European and national projects has the necessary experience and knowhow in working with LEA data and building privacy-by-design solutions. Some of VCL’s security related projects are GRACE (RIA), INFINITY (RIA), AIDA (IA), INFRASTRESS (IA), FASTER (IA), ANITA (RIA), ALADDIN (RIA), ASGARD (RIA), SURVANT (FTI), DANTE (IA), FORENSOR (IA) , TRILLION (RIA), LASIE (FP7 IP), ADVISE (FP7 STREP). More information on projects, collaborations and research results can be found in https://vcl.iti.gr
DC
DC was founded by a team of experienced ICT researchers and business consultants, with a strong track record in security, identification, design, development of research and innovation projects. While these projects have been addressing a wide range of technologies and domains - including security, privacy, systems software and architectures, cloud computing, the common research ground in the aforementioned domains has been data collection, management and analytics.
CERTH - iti
Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas / Information Technologies Institute
Partner Description |
DC was founded by a team of experienced ICT researchers and business consultants, with a strong track record in security, identification, design, development of research and innovation projects. While these projects have been addressing a wide range of technologies and domains – including security, privacy, systems software and architectures, cloud computing, the common research ground in the aforementioned domains has been data collection, management and analytics. In this context, the team has collected extensive datasets (some of them shared with LEAs), responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities, exploiting big data management and analytics techniques, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to enable the provision of high quality products and services. |
Role in the project |
Key staff members |
Nikolaos Lykousas (male) received his Master’s degree in Intelligent interactive Systems from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 2017, where he was awarded with an academic excellence scholarship for his achievements, after receiving his B.S. degree from the Department of Informatics at the University of Piraeus, in 2016. Since his undergraduate studies, he has participated as a research engineer in several EC funded projects, and has gained considerable experience in the fields of Big Data Analytics, Cybersecurity, Digital Privacy and Cloud computing. Currently he is studying deviant behavior in modern social networks and is delivering custom security solutions for end users and security auditing. Finally, he is the CEO of DC. Dr. Thomas K. Dasaklis (male) graduated from the University of Piraeus, Department of Industrial Management and Technology. He holds a M.Sc. degree in supply chain management and a Ph.D. degree in healthcare management and disaster response. His research interests lie in the area of supply chain management, operational research, humanitarian logistics/disaster response and blockchain technology. He has participated in National and European Research projects and has published papers in several international journals. He has worked for the European Commission (DG Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection) and the University of Piraeus Research Centre. He is Adjunct Academic Staff at the Hellenic Open University and a research associate in the field of blockchain technologies for DC. Dr. Ivan Homoliak (male) was born in Rimavska Sobota, Slovak Republic, in 1987. He received his B.S. in Information Technology and M.S. in the field of intrusion detection and supervised machine learning from Faculty of Information Technology, Brno University of Technology (FIT BUT), Czech Republic, in 2007 and 2012, respectively. Ivan has earned a Ph.D. in the area of adversarial intrusion detection in network traffic from FIT BUT in 2016. From 2016-2020, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), and he worked in the project aimed at distributed computing and blockchains. Prior to that, Ivan worked on the project focusing on insider threat detection in SUTD, where he pursued the application of ML in this area and analysis of security issues. Currently, he is the research scientist at FIT BUT, and research associate of DC in the fields of cyber security and blockchain technologies. |
Relevant publications and achievements |
|
Relevant previous projects or activities |
DC members have been actively involved and performed research in the following EU-funded research projects and initiatives:
Project name: OPERANDO Duration: May 2015-May 2018 (36M) Customer/Funding Programme: H2020 DS 2014 Privacy GA no. 653704. Total budget: 3.7406.038€ Project description: The goal of the OPERANDO project is to specify, implement, field-test, validate and exploit an innovative privacy enforcement platform that will enable the Privacy as a Service (PaS) business paradigm and the market for online privacy services. A key aspect addressed by OPERANDO is the need to simplify privacy for end users (data subjects). OPERANDO will support a simple Privacy Dashboard allowing users to specify their preferences. These will be automatically compared with Online Service Provider (OSP) privacy policies and translated into personal data access control decisions by the PSP. OPERANDO will also address OSP requirements for simplified privacy compliance checking and auditing, to verify that they will meet user expectations or to satisfy privacy regulators. The technology will be trialled in the health care and public administration sectors. The OPERANDO consortium thereby aims to contribute to the entire ecosystem of online privacy stakeholders: Users, PSPs, Online Service Providers and Regulators. Federation of Privacy Authorities will be supported to increase the value of the services and their uptake. The OPERANDO platform will be positioned for endorsement by European governments and standardization bodies. To increase transparency of the privacy services and dissemination of results, OPERANDO outcomes will be implemented in Open Source, and will be made available to the community for evolution and value-adding beyond the scope of the project.
Project name: LOCARD Duration: May 2019-May 2022 (36M) Customer/Funding Programme: H2020-SU-SEC-2018-2019-2020 Total budget: 6,843,385.00€ Project description: The LOCARD project aims to provide a holistic platform for chain of custody assurance along the forensic workflow, a trusted distributed platform allowing the storage of digital evidence metadata in a blockchain. Each node of LOCARD will be able to independently set its own permission policies and to selectively share access to digital evidence with other nodes when deemed necessary and upon proper authorization through fine-grained policies. LOCARD’s modularity will also allow diverse actors to tailor the platform to their specific needs and role in the digital forensic workflow, from preparation and readiness, to collection, to analysis and reporting. LOCARD will have a crowdsource module to collect citizen reports of selected violations, a crawler to detect and correlate online deviant behaviour, and a toolkit for investigators that will assist them in collecting online and offline evidence. This will be powered by an immutable storage and an identity management system that will protect privacy and handle access to evidence data using a Trusted Execution Environment. Blockchain technology will not only guarantee that information about the evidence cannot be tampered with, but allow interoperability without the need for a trusted third party.
Project name: PRACTICIES Duration: May 2017-May 2020 (36M) Customer/Funding Programme: H2020 SEC-06-FCT-2016 (GA no. 740072) Total budget: 3.389.720,00€ Project description: The project “Partnership against violent radicalization in the cities” (PRACTICIES) mobilizes networks of European cities, experts from the fields of humanities, political sciences, information sciences to better understand the human roots of violent radicalization and to characterize these processes starting by their origins and to build concrete tools and prevention practices. To achieve these objectives the project PRACTICIES relies on the cooperation of experience in the field of urban security in cities and expertise of national structures to fight terrorism. Our project aims to evaluate the existing procedures of registration, identification youth in the process of radicalization in an urban space. Describe and explain the social course of transition to radical action, to provide concrete tools for action. For this our project will be structured in 6 work packages :
|
Relevant infrastructures and networks |
No needed infrastructure to deliver the expected work. |
C&T
Crime & tech srl is the spin-off company of Transcrime, the Joint research centre on transnational crime of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy). Crime & tech translates the research of Transcrime into models and tools for the prevention and the detection of criminal activities.
C&T
Crime & Tech SRL
Short summary:
Crime&tech srl is the spin-off company of Transcrime, the Joint research centre on transnational crime of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy). Crime&tech translates the research of Transcrime into models and tools for the prevention and the detection of criminal activities. In particular Crime&tech can demonstrate a thorough knowledge in the application of advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence for the development of predictive models in the financial crime, money laundering and terrorist financing domain, working with both public authorities and private entities such as banks and other obliged entities. The staff of Crime&tech includes experts in the criminology, economics, finance, statistics, IT and law field.
HQ Country: Italy
Official Website: https://crimetech.it/
Social Media:
- Twitter Account: @Crimetech2015
- LinkedIn Account: @Crime&tech srl
- YouTube Account: Transcrime – Università Cattolica
BayHfoeD
The Department of Police is located in Fürstenfeldbruck and in Sulzbach Rosenberg and currently trains the majority of police students in Bavaria at the campus in Fürstenfeldbruck. Students here train for their career on professional and executive levels for the Police Enforcement Service (either Police Force / Constabulary or Criminal Investigation Police Department).
HfoeD
University of Applied Sciences for Public Service in Bavaria
Brief partner profile |
The Department of Police is located in Fürstenfeldbruck and in Sulzbach Rosenberg and currently trains the majority of police students in Bavaria at the campus in Fürstenfeldbruck. Students here train for their career on professional and executive levels for the Police Enforcement Service (either Police Force / Constabulary or Criminal Investigation Police Department). The University of Applied Sciences – Police Affairs (HfoeD) teaches future higher ranked police officers in various disciplines including psychology, political science and social sciences.
The inter-disciplinary research team of the HfoeD examines various domains relevant for policing including cybercrime, radicalisation, extremism, terrorism among others. Security research for and via the police strengthens everyday networking in police practice with training and further education, in other words integrating theory and practice. The research team of the HfoeD provides scientific knowledge on relevant topics in the field (i.e. security research, crime prevention or crime research) to police or institutions of the security structure and aids in the design of further training courses and seminars and the mediation of contacts. In addition, the research team supports police and security authorities by providing scientific services in solving day-to-day problems.
Furthermore, the HfoeD works closely with the Ministry of the Interior and the Police Departments in Bavaria to maintain current standards between theory and practice and to serve the needs of police officers and citizens, alike. Aside from the European research projects (examples under relevant projects), the HfoeD supports the police academy in Bulgaria within Erasmus projects, a partnership with the police academy in Bucharest, Romania, a partnership with the police academy in Prague, Czech Republic and a further partnership with the University for Policing in Poland. |
Role in the project |
HfoeD will participate with their experts in cybercrime and will act as end-users of the project, performing pilot testing of the tools and platform that will be developed. HfoeD will participate in WP1, WP2, WP3, WP6 and will coordinate and lead WP7 on dissemination. |
Relevant expertise / experience |
HfoeD has expertise in ● Project management ● Training ● Dissemination ● Stakeholder consultation exercises ● HfoeD has fully equipped labs for studying cybercrime incidents.
|
Relevant projects / activities / initiatives |
H2020 RAMSES: Internet Forensic Platform for Tracking the Money Flow of Financially Motivated Malware H2020 TENSOR: Retrieval and Analysis of Heterogeneous Online Content for Terrorist Activity Recognition H2020 Unity: Strengthening the Connection between Police and Communities to Maximize the Safety and Security of all Citizens H2020 Lets CROWD: Law Enforcement Agencies Human Factor Methods and Toolkit for the Security and Protections of Crowds in Mass Gatherings H2020 PROPHETS: Preventing Radicalisation Online through the Proliferation of Harmonised Toolkits
|
Relevant publications |
● Nitsch, Holger. Radicalization in a regional context: Future Perspective on Possible Terrorist Threats and Radicalization, in: Larsen, Henrik et al. (ed.): Using open data to detect organized crime threats, Springer 2017, p. 241-260. ● Nitsch, Holger: Der Weg in den Terrorismus, in: Tophoven, Rolf / Hirschmann, Kai (eds.): Das Jahrzehnt des Terrorismus, Security Explorer, 2010, p. 259-262. ● Nitsch, Holger; Ronert, Sarina: Community Policing and Radicalization: Evaluation and European Examples, in: Bayer, Saskia et al. (ed.): Community Policing – a European perspective, Springer 2017, p.: 67-82. ● Ronert, S.: Yusuf al-Qaradawi und seine These eines gewaltfreien Islam in Europa, Bonner Islamwissenschaftliche Hefte, EB Verlag, Heft 34, 2015. ● Baker-Eck, Bianca: Psychologie des Terrorismus, Der Kriminalist 2019, p. 34-35. |
Infrastructure and technical equipment |
N/A |
Key personnel CVs |
Dr. Holger Nitsch (M) Dr. Holger Nitsch is a senior researcher and lecturer within the HfoeD and head of the Research and Social Science Department of the Department of Policing. His research interests include political sciences, right wing extremis, cybercrime, radicalisation and all its aspects, corruption, migration, globalization, terrorism, Islamism, contemporary history and sociology. His main focus of research and lecturing is in extremism, radicalisation, and terrorism. He is also the author and co-author of many articles, most of them about terrorism and radicalisation.
Mrs. Sarina Ronert (F) Sarina Ronert, M.A. (F) is a Project Manager at HfoeD. She conducted her Master’s degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich with a particular focus on Arabic philology, which she undertook in Palestine. Her previous research focussed on the domains of terrorism, radicalisation and extremism. For the past five years her main focus has been on European research projects for radicalisation, extremism, terrorism and cybercrime. Currently, she is a PhD Candidate at the University of Newcastle where her specialisation includes researching Islamic State activities in the deep web. She has a multi-lingual background and a widespread cultural knowledge and presently leads our European Projects team at the HfoeD.
Ms. Stephanie Stangl (F) Stephanie Stangl, M.A. (F) is a Project Manager at HfoeD. She holds a Master’s degree in International Politics and Diplomacy and a Bachelor’s degree in International Development. Before joining the research team of HfoeD, she worked for a NGO in Dakar focusing on human rights violations. She also engaged in a research project on the living conditions of Sub-Saharan migrants in Tangier, Morocco where her focus lied on human rights and treatment of migrants/refugees in transit countries. Her expertise lies within soft laws and human rights with a particular focus on international politics, which allow for a unique perspective in our research at Hfoed on terrorism, radicalisation, and extremism.
Mrs. Bianca Baker-Eck (F) Bianca Baker-Eck, M.Sc. (F) is a criminal psychologist, senior researcher and lecturer at HfoeD. She has a background in psychotherapy and a Masters of Science in Forensic and Legal Psychology, where she examined the behaviour patterns of sexual offenders. After working in various prisons (post-convictions) she went on to conduct a PhD researching pre-convictions, particularly the psychology of police interviews with suspects and witnesses/victims. Since 2014 her expertise lies within ethical international police interviews with a particular focus on investigative empathy. With her background in behavioural analysis she not only trains police in investigative interviews, but also adds a psychological perspective to our European research projects in the behaviour of criminal activity such as radicalisation, terrorism and cybercrime.
Dr. Agnes Höchtl (F) Dr. Agnes Höchtl (F) is a social psychologist, researcher and lecturer at HfoeD. She holds a Master’s degree in Economic, Organizational, and Social Psychology. Throughout her PhD studies in Social Psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich she specialised in social cognition, researching the interplay of recognition as a process of social sharedness and uncertainty. She is a certified psychological trainer for social skills and trains police officers in this area at the HfoeD. She conducts research in our European Projects team where her psychological expertise enhances our knowledge of radicalization, terrorism, and cybercriminal behavior from a social psychological (behavioral) perspective.
Dr. Sebastian Allertseder (M) Dr. Sebastian Allertseder is a lecturer and researcher at the HfoeD. He is specialized in training activities with a focus on teaching political science and psychology. He is specialized and published in the field of European integration and international cooperation. At the moment, he is working on terrorism, counter-radicalisation, crowd management and cyber-criminality issues. |
SPA
Independent expert organization within the police authority with overall responsibility for forensics. Both a forensic lab and a research organization. ~ 550 employees, main site in Linköping.
SPA
Swedish National Forensic Centre (NFC)
Swedish National Forensic Centre (NFC)
Independent expert organization within the police authority with overall responsibility for forensics. Both a forensic lab and a research organization.
~ 550 employees, main site in Linköping
HP
The Hellenic Police's mission is to ensure peace and order as well as citizens' unhindered social development, prevent and interdict crime as well as to protect the State and the democratic form of government within the framework of constitutional order, prevent illegal border crossing as well as to enforce the legal framework in which immigrants are allowed to live and work in the country.
HP
Hellenic Police
Short summary
The Hellenic Police is subordinated to the Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection. The Hellenic Police assumed its present structure in 1984 when the Gendarmerie (Chorofylaki) and the Urban Police Forces (Astynomia Poleon) were merged (Law 1481/1-10-1984, Government Gazette 152 A). Hellenic Police (Elliniki Astynomia) is a Law Enforcement Agency according to the Law nr. 4249/2014 and its mission is to:
a) ensure peace and order as well as citizens’ unhindered social development, a mission that includes general policing duties and traffic safety
b) prevent and interdict crime as well as to protect the State and the democratic form of government within the framework of constitutional order, a mission that also includes the implementation of public and state security policy
c) prevent illegal border crossing as well as to enforce the legal framework in which immigrants are allowed to live and work in the country.
Hellenic Police is comprised of both central and regional Services.
Hellenic Police’s headquarters is the supreme authority over these Services. Its efforts center on the fulfillment of the Force`s mission, within the framework of the Ministry of Interior`s policy. For this reason, it schedules, directs, oversees and monitors the activities of its Services, and it ensures the necessary conditions for the exercise of its authority.
In its continuous mission to serve and protect citizens, Hellenic Police has responded to our times’ demands and challenges by improving training, adopting a modern crime prevention policy, better utilizing science and technology and by exploiting international law enforcement cooperation.
ABI Lab
ABI Lab is the Research and Innovation Centre promoted by the Italian Banking Association that provides thought leadership through its research in the area of banking and financial services. Consisting of 122 banks and 70 ICT partners, the Consortium main purpose is to foster collaboration between banks and ICT companies on innovative technology to strengthen the efficiency of the financial services.
ABI Lab
ABI Lab is the Research and Innovation Centre promoted by the Italian Banking Association that provides thought leadership through its research in the area of banking and financial services.
Consisting of 122 banks and 70 ICT partners, the Consortium main purpose is to foster collaboration between banks and ICT companies on innovative technology to strengthen the efficiency of the financial services.
WEBSITE:
Social:
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/company/abi-lab/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/ABI_Lab
Finance Innovation
Finance Innovation is a global competitiveness cluster based in Paris, France. It brings together the key stakeholders of the financial ecosystem with a view to identify innovative financial projects, encourage synergies through the creation of collaborative projects, accelerate their growth and promotion in France and internationally and create an ecosystem of excellence that brings together academics, Fintechs and large corporates.
Finance Innovation
Finance Innovation is a global competitiveness cluster based in Paris, France. It brings together the key stakeholders of the financial ecosystem (SMEs, fintechs, banks, universities, research laboratories, public bodies) with a view to identify innovative financial projects, encourage synergies through the creation of collaborative projects, accelerate their growth and promotion in France and internationally and create an ecosystem of excellence that brings together academics, Fintechs and large corporates.
Website: https://finance-innovation.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/financeinnov
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pole-finance-innovation/
ScoreChain
Scorechain is a Risk-AML software provider for cryptocurrencies. As a leader in crypto compliance, the Luxembourgish company has helped 200+ customers in 40+ countries since 2015, ranging from cryptocurrency businesses to financial institutions, audit and law firms, and LEAs.
Scorechain
Summary:
Scorechain is a Risk-AML software provider for cryptocurrencies. As a leader in crypto compliance, the Luxembourgish company has helped 200+ customers in 40+ countries since 2015, ranging from cryptocurrency businesses to financial institutions, audit and law firms, and LEAs.
Scorechain supports Bitcoin with Lightning Network detection, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, XRP Ledger, and Tezos. The software can de-anonymize blockchain data, connect with sanction lists, and provide risk scoring on crypto transactions, addresses, and entities. 300+ risk-AML scenarios are provided to customers with a wide range of risk indicators to facilitate suspicious activity reporting to authorities with enhanced due diligence.
Website: https://www.scorechain.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/scorechain
Tweeter: https://twitter.com/scorechain
