Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB About the project
Corruption causes great damage, that much is clear. Otherwise, it is a complex phenomenon that is difficult to record and measure. Political decisions are therefore based on insufficient information and there is a lack of technological tools in the fight against corruption. Social scientists, data experts and law enforcement practitioners are now tackling these challenges together - in the Horizon Europe project "Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organized Crime Networks (FALCON)". 25 partners from 15 countries are taking part in the three-year research project, pursuing an interdisciplinary, evidence-based and data-driven approach.
Goals
A key concept in FALCON is the Corruption Intelligence Pictures (CIPs), which are intended to provide a holistic view of various areas of corruption. In order to establish these CIPs, the players in the consortium must cooperate closely. First, objective corruption indicators are developed and validated. Then, powerful data analysis tools, data pipelines and applications will be designed and implemented. These software tools will help to update the CIPs, enabling a comprehensive assessment of corruption risks and informed policy decisions. At the same time, they will also support the investigation and prosecution of individual cases.
To achieve these goals, FALCON will apply its methodology to four corruption phenomena, which will be treated as pilot cases in the project: Fraud in public procurement, evasion of sanctions by oligarchs and kleptocrats, corruption linked to smuggling at border crossings and conflicts of interest of politically exposed persons.
Contribution of the Fraunhofer IOSB
Fraunhofer IOSB in Karlsruhe is part of the FALCON consortium and contributes its extensive experience in the fields of applied artificial intelligence (AI), interoperable data spaces and architectures, and assistance systems. In particular, we are responsible for the overall technical coordination and for the creation and implementation of the common representational model. This model is a kind of knowledge graph that will make it possible to uniformly analyze and merge heterogeneous data from a variety of sources, such as public tenders, news archives, cryptocurrency transactions or video surveillance material from border crossings. Fraunhofer IOSB is also responsible for the "Communication & Dissemination" work package.
Project partners
- Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS), Greece (Coordinator)
- Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB
- 23 other partners from research and development, social sciences, law enforcement and anti-corruption (for a complete list see project website)