Technological Lab - Agenfor International

Technological Lab

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The Technological Lab is the result of the cooperation between the FOUNDATION AGENFOR INTERNATIONAL and the Company REX TE.CH S.A.

The Technological Lab gathers needs-inputs from final beneficiaries, such as LEAs, judiciary and private agencies in the fields of security and justice; designs integrated technical solutions at different TRL levels; and tests and validates it in a living environment.

As part of the EU-funded projects DERAD, J-SAFE and MINDB4ACT we have developed several different innovative technologies:

MAGIC OWL: VR BLENDED SOLUTIONS FOR SECURITY AND JUSTICE

In the Agenfor Technical Lab we have developed a new innovative methodology to deliver training courses for judicial practitioners: the VR Blended Solution.

This new methodology capitalizes on the lessons learned during the COVID-19 crisis, meaning it was designed to be flexible and up scalable and adaptable at national levels.

The VR blended solution combines four training methods:

  Immersive VR Training. Contents and delivery are based on single and multiplayer activities in virtual reality, used in combination with serious gaming. This technology is both immersive and highly interactive. Individual trainees (or small groups) can interact irrespective of whether they are training in the same or different geographic locations, provided that they have an internet connection, a computer and basic VR equipment.
     
  For scenario awareness, a 360° immersive learning environment is created. This technology is not interactive but immersive and can be combined with VR training in the single or multiplayer platform or can stand alone. 360° scenario awareness training requires minimal equipment and can be used independently from the other platforms, provided that trainees have a mobile phone with internet connection.
     
 

Synchronic and a-synchronic online delivery. This training methodology exploits the HERMES training The online delivery can be combined with uploaded online seminars, live Zoom seminars, or any other traditional platform for online training, and can be integrated into the virtual classrooms of the VR training, if desired. In the case of the a-synchronic components, the training content will be recorded and made available on the platform for the trainees to access it when they choose.Therefore, trainers will be asked to record their video lessons. In the case of a-synchronic learning, each trainer will be asked to hold one live online seminar with the students in order to:

  • Enter into further topic details and discussion;
  • Answer questions;
  • Give support on the training.
     
  Traditional face-to-face lessons, with the option to record these and combine them with the three above-mentioned methods to facilitate the participation of trainees in remote locations.
     

A second component of the Technological Lab is represented by the cooperation with key private companies working in the field of digital forensics, which established with us the ELPeF: Experimental Lab of Penitentiary Forensics

Digital technologies, which today are an integral part of our everyday lives, can become great facilitators of both social integration processes, since they tend to preserve social networks and job opportunities even in the distance, but also of the phenomena of radicalisation and terrorism, since they expose vulnerable groups to propaganda, indoctrination, criminally or ideologically motivated recruitment and training. Moreover, the evolution of technologies, from cryptography to the miniaturisation of systems, produces new modi operandi for the criminal world, as well as for the police forces engaged in the actions of prevention and counteraction. This global trend does not exclude the prison world, into which technologies have penetrated in many different ways: first of all, as a legal component of re-education processes (from training to communication with families, or monitoring tools for alternative measures to detention) or of prison management (think, for example, of apps communicating the occurrence of critical events in prison by radicalized inmates, now widespread at European level, offender management software, biometrics as an aid to newly qualified officers , cameras in the management of the so-called ‘dynamic surveillance’, etc). Secondly, new technologies also serves as an important facilitator of illegal activities , as documented by the mass seizures of mobile phones held by inmates, often miniaturised and of Chinese production, or by the capture of illegal drones, used as new logistical tools to transport drugs, SIMs and other contraband into prisons.

Implemented in cooperation with the Italian Ministry of Justice-PRAP Triveneto, the ELPEF lab includes several modules aimed at preventing serious crimes through a set of technological tools to better manage preventive actions in prison, which have the potentiality to detect risk indicators at an early stage using forensic methods.

ELPEF

  1. Test technologies and solutions in real prison environments
  2. Propose the adaptation of disruptive technologies through joint public-private projects
  3. Find viable and interoparable solutions for crime prevention in prison and forensic investigations

Key component of the test tools in ELPEF are:

 

Artificial Intelligence and big data analysis, integrating HUMINT and OSINT, can contribute to better filter and prioritise mass data on suspects, compose criminal maps and identify hotspots, to better address preventive measures of all sorts (primary, secondary and tertiary, but also preventive investigations and adoption of preventive security measures).

Data integration from police, intel agencies and courts, communities and healthcare services, teachers, and therapists may contribute to more precise forecasting techniques, but calls for clear pseudonymisation systems (hit/non hit), taking privacy and security regulation into account.

Data mining for preventive measures generated by mobile data forensics in investigations may be a precious support for the expansion of preventive intelligence analysis, based on the detection of network connections, hierarchies among suspects, group dynamics and movements through the phone cells in various environments. At this level we combine OSINT and forensic tools to test new innovative solutions aimed at integrating prevention with investigations.