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The Irish Times has featured the VIGILANT Project in an article highlighting how artificial intelligence is being used to help European police forces detect and respond to criminal threats linked to online disinformation.
The article outlined how VIGILANT aims to support authorities in identifying emerging risks such as violent attacks, terrorism, and targeted misinformation campaigns.
“The type of thing that we’re talking about is people who are promoting violent attacks on individuals or marginalised groups in society, most recently promoting attacks on migrant centres or on IPAS (International Protection Accommodation Services) centres in Ireland or migrant camps across Europe,” said Brendan Spillane, Assistant Professor at the ADAPT Centre, University College Dublin.
VIGILANT's tools will be able to analyse both text and images, as well as uncover the online networks distributing false or harmful information.
According to Eva Power, VIGILANT’s Project Manager and Program Manager at the ADAPT Centre, police forces are currently dealing with disinformation in a “reactive” way. VIGILANT, she said, will “help police become more proactive”.
She referenced the November 2023 Dublin riots, where millions of euros of damage was caused to the city centre after false information circulated on social media in the wake of a knife attack on a group of schoolchildren.
You can read the full Irish Times article here.