Improving European investigation capabilities to fight terrorism and serious crime by leveraging the latest advancements in modern biometric technologies
The newly launched TENSOR project is set to enhance public safety in the EU by revolutionising the investigation capabilities of forensic institutes and Police Authorities through the use of emerging biometric technologies. This 3-year innovation action, supported by the Horizon Europe Programme, brings together 20 partners from 15 European countries on the way to accelerate the adoption of modern biometric solutions in law enforcement and create a common ground among security practitioners and researchers by introducing the one-of-its-kind European Biometric Data Space.
TENSOR will provide Police Authorities a platform that facilitates the biometric evidence extraction, sharing, and storage in cross border environments, allowing them to share best practices in an automated, robust, secure, privacy-preserving and scalable manner. The full potential of biometrics technologies will be exploited, as well as their fusion with less distinctive features (e.g., shoemarks) in case of partial evidence gathered in the crime scenes by forensic experts, strengthening their acceptance in court.
In TENSOR, lawful evidence derived from CCTVs (face, gait, voice), mobile devices (behavioural patterns) and fingerprints, will be combined with more or less distinctive features towards accurate and multimodal identification and criminal identity verification. Through novel smart contracts operating over an accountable and sovereign blockchain infrastructure, a trusted environment with self-learning capabilities will be created to check the integrity and detect the anomalies in the extracted forensic evidence once these have been shared by the participating agencies.
At the heart of the TENSOR project lies the creation of a unique European Biometric Data Space, which will enable seamless sharing of biometric data between stakeholders, allowing for faster and more accurate identification of suspects. This new paradigm aims to revolutionise investigation capabilities, helping law enforcement agencies to more effectively combat serious crime and terrorism.
Through active collaboration of security stakeholders, TENSOR’s developments will be extensively evaluated in real-life settings, in three (3) different European countries, considering different operational procedures and diverse environments. Three pilot studies will take place in Czech Republic, Finland, and Portugal with the participation of a wide range of stakeholders and citizens.
Find more information on the TENSOR project website: https://tensor-horizon.eu/
Please also visit the TENSOR social media presences:
TENSOR Youtube Channel – more coming soon:
