'VICTORIA': Video analysis for investigation of criminal and terrorist activities
The video material gathered and analysed by law enforcement authorities has become a vital part of judicial investigations into major crimes and terrorist attacks. The recent terrorist attacks in London, Nice, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona and Cambrils prove once again the importance of such video recordings. At the same time the amount of video data available is continuously increasing with the rapid deployment of video equipment, surveillance cameras in public and private areas, body-worn cameras and smartphones or digital cameras used by bystanders.
Despite the growth, all of the video investigation work is still mostly carried out manually by police officers. Current practices require too many human resources to manage the enormous and growing volume of videos to analyse. As a result, the post-event extraction of the first crucial video evidence suffers unreasonable delays. Time is a critical factor for investigators as was seen during the recent Merah case (2012) in France: 35 terabytes of video excerpts were collected amounting to 10,000 hours of footage which required two years to analyse. There is an urgent need for efficient tools to help the police in their routine tasks for video investigations.
Background to the VICTORIA project
Following reflection by the French and German Ministries of the Interior, this project was born to get academics and manufacturers thinking about the topic of exploiting video recordings in major court cases (terrorism, organised crime). It will deliver an ethical and legally compliant video analysis platform that will accelerate the video analysis tasks of law enforcement agencies.
Aims
The aim of VICTORIA is to facilitate the work of investigators. To do so, the project will develop six operational scenarios representative of the majority of legal investigations in terms of environment and events / individuals / objects to be detected.
The video analytics to be developed will be selected according to these scenarios, to be able to detect all targets defined in the operational scenarios. In the long-term the aim of the project is to make modern and robust video analytical tools available to more quickly and efficiently resolve investigations.
Impact
The impact of VICTORIA over three years:
- Increase capabilities to solve investigations
- Reduce costs and solve crimes more quickly:
- Allow the police to investigate more video material more rapidly, resulting in reduced costs as less effort is needed for video investigations.
- Prevent terrorist attacks:
As important clues will be extracted more quickly, the police will take quicker targeted measures to locate and stop terrorists and also to identify members of the criminal networks, thus helping to dismantle the networks and preventing further attacks.
- The best tools
- Improve the population’s trust in its police force
Role of the French Ministry of the Interior
The French Ministry of the Interior is one of the consortium partners and is represented by the Central Service for the Technical and Scientific Police (Service Central de la Police Technique et Scientifique).
CIVIPOL is tasked with the project’s financial and administrative management on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior.
VICTORIA has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under contract No. 740754.
To find out more about the project visit: https://www.victoria-project.eu/news-and-events/project-news/
drapeau de l'Union Européenne
The project in figures
€5m
Total budget for the project
14
European consortium partners
Chronology
VICTORIA, a three-year project began on 1 May 2017.
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01 May 2017
Start of the project
VICTORIA Hackathon, Bochum, Allemagne
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10 October 2018
Hackathon
Partner meeting in Germany
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30 April 2020
Fin du projet
Logo du projet
About the project
Person in charge of steering
JUDICE Joana
Project status
Finished
Funding type
European Union
Contract type