AI is transforming law enforcement, offering new tools for policing but also enabling advanced criminal tactics that challenge traditional methods. The global nature of crime, including cyber threats, trafficking, and terrorism, calls for innovative solutions as LEAs face vast data volumes and increasingly sophisticated criminal activities. AI has raised concerns with deepfakes—highly realistic but fake audio, video, or text that can depict individuals saying or doing things they never did. Deepfakes pose serious risks, impacting politics, economy, and social trust. Examples include fabricated videos of political figures and voice-cloned audio for financial fraud, often spread through social networks to deceive and defraud on a large scale. Forensic institutes and courts struggle to differentiate authentic evidence from AI fabrications, especially in cases involving national security. Despite promising detection research, existing methods fall short as current models rely on limited, non-diverse datasets and produce results with limited legal admissibility. The DETECTOR initiative aims to address these challenges, supporting LEAs and forensic experts in analyzing altered media. It offers an integrated solution through cross-border collaboration among AI researchers, LEAs, forensic scientists, legal experts, and ethicists. DETECTOR’s goals include: developing specialized tools for detecting media manipulation, creating comprehensive datasets, researching digital evidence exchange across borders, engaging stakeholders, informing policymakers, and training forensic experts in digital media and AI. Through these efforts, DETECTOR seeks to safeguard digital evidence authenticity and enhance forensic capabilities to counter AI-driven media manipulation across Europe

Organized crime investigation can greatly benefit from the availability of very small, concealable sensing devices to monitor, record and communicate criminal activity to remote surveillance stations. Acquired data can be used as proof in Courts of Justice only if the sensing device, the communication channel and the monitoring station are tamper proof and comply with all legal, integrity and chain-of-custody requirements. The NOSY project is focused on the development of a miniaturized yet highly sensitive platform, for the detection of illicit or suspicious substances. The platform includes the development of a miniature sensing device, a monitoring station and communication infrastructure for LEA network integration. The enabling technology of the system is an innovative microelectronics sensor that combines state of the art micro and nanotechnologies with advanced smart sensing materials, which will be integrated as part of the project. In addition there will be the development of complete devices for both stand alone and embeddable monitoring and recording. A critical requirement is that the recorded or transmitted data to be usable as proof in Court. The device will include proofing from any type of external tampering; the communication channel will be secure, compliant and integrated into the existing LEA data networks. As deemed necessary by LEAs, the project will develop prototype products to help tackle illegal drug trafficking and development of homemade bombs. Accurate and unambiguous identification of substances is fundamental to allow LEA to intervene with the most suitable action or counter measure. LEAs will be involved at all critical milestones of the project, from initial requirements, to a first prototype validation, to the extensive trial phase. The project will also propose a certification process tailored to the new sensing devices to enable their legal validation for forensics use while in compliance with European privacy requirements.

Money underpins all terrorist activities (without money propaganda, training, recruitment, and support are less effective or null). The disruption of terrorist financing activity is a key element in any fight against terrorism. DANTE will deliver effective, efficient and automated data mining, analytics solutions and an integrated system to detect, retrieve, and analyse huge amounts of heterogeneous and complex multimedia and multi-language (in five languages) terrorist-related contents from both the Surface and the Deep Web, including the Dark Nets. The ultimate goal is to discover (by “connecting the dots”), analyse and monitor potential terrorist-related activities and people, with focus on online fund raising activities, but also considering propaganda, training and disinformation. The challenging results of DANTE are achievable by exploiting, improving and integrating several existing data mining and analysis tools (mostly provided and owned by the partners; some already with high TRL). These tools and services will be further evolved and enhanced to be put at the service of the requirements provided by LEA partners (Guardia Civil, Policia Judiciaria, Home Office, Carabinieri). Thus, starting from lab and pre-prototype tools and methods, a market ready product with higher TRL will be the major outcome of DANTE. The presence of end user partners in the consortium will allow the validation/optimisation of the solution and boost of its adoption in their operational circumstances. The DANTE system will be validated and demonstrated in three pilots under the direct responsibility of the involved LEAs in their operational environments with the aim of detecting, analysing and monitoring terrorist-related contents for (i) propaganda (including recruitment, incitement, radicalization and disinformation), (ii) training and (iii) fund raising. DANTE surpasses the needs of the call for ensuring TRL6 of the projects results, by including components that will reach TRL7.