About VIGILANT
The proliferation of disinformation, hate-speech, conspiracy, violent extremism and other harmful content poses a threat to democracy, state institutions, the rule of law, public order and security. Like a rumour or virus, such harmful content spreads, mutates and appears again under a different guise.
Disinformation takes on many forms and may be explicit, cryptic, suggestive, and utilise hidden messages or dog whistles. The Internet and social media platforms have provided ideal conditions for it to grow. Whether organised or organic, disinformation and other problematic content are often promoted, spread and amplified through public and hidden groups, by individuals motivated by greed, hate and power, who may be linked to foreign state actors or criminal networks.
Project overview
VIGILANT is an interdisciplinary effort by leading European researchers partnered with four European police authorities from Spain, Greece, Estonia and Moldova to develop an integrated platform of disinformation detection and analysis tools from FP7 and H2020 projects.
VIGILANT will provide police authorities with the technical capabilities and institutional knowledge necessary to combat disinformation and other related harmful content while, at the same time, equip them with an understanding of the social drivers and behavioural dynamics behind the phenomena. The project also includes first-of-its-kind disinformation response and investigation training for police officers. Finally, the project includes setting up a specialist European network for Officers to share their experiences and knowledge promoting a unified European approach to a problem that ignores borders. This multi-dimensional approach will increase citizen trust in digital information and infrastructure.
The VIGILANT project brings together leading European researchers and institutions with significant experience in combatting disinformation. They are active in multiple EU projects, national and international initiatives, and community based projects that combat disinformation. The VIGILANT project is advised by an External Expert Advisory Board of recognised international experts in disinformation, police Intelligence, ethics, law, security and privacy.
A modular platform
VIGILANT is an end-to-end solution of state-of-the-art detection, investigation, forensic and analysis tools contained in a single platform. Its Disinformation Toolbox will be packed with over thirty individual tools enabling police officers to detect disinformation and other harmful content and to analyse text, image/video, and networks.
Building institutional knowledge and response capabilities
VIGILANT will provide extensive training to equip police authorities with knowledge about disinformation campaigns and the appropriate actions for dealing with them. Understanding the social drivers, goals, motivations, psychological dispositions and actions of individuals sharing and consuming disinformation by drawing on social science research to obtain a whole-of-society perspective of disinformation is essential to understand how best to counter disinformation linked to criminal activities.
Establishing a peer-to-peer support network
The VIGILANT project will set up a specialist European network for police officers tasked with combatting disinformation to share their knowledge and experiences of investigating disinformation linked to criminal activities to build police capabilities to respond to a problem that ignores borders.
Frequently
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Please contact us at info@vigilantproject.eu, we will get in touch with you.
The VIGILANT project brings together 17 leading European partners from academia, industry, government research centers, and four police authorities to detect and analyse disinformation that leads to criminal activities. Using an ethical-by-design approach, the project integrates the latest developments in tools tailored to analyse, detect, mitigate and prevent disinformation with implications for security. VIGILANT will be primarily used for the targeted detection of disinformation from pre-identified sources in all formats (text, image, video) and in multiple languages. By using VIGILANT, police authorities will be better equipped to stop individuals or organised groups selling false medical cures, spreading extremist content or terrorism threats or inciting violence and hate speech towards minorities.
The VIGILANT tool is only working with data that is publicly available. VIGILANT just makes it easier for police authorities to search through the data publicly available across different platforms (e.g. social media) and sources and analyze them quickly.
This project is funded by the European Union’s European Research Executive Agency under the Horizon Europe scheme.
There are several institutions involved in the VIGILANT, including scientists, universities, think tanks, government research centers, and law enforcement authorities from 11 European countries. You can find all the project partners on this website.
During the project duration between 2022 – 2025, the tool is intended primarily for the police authorities. After the project finishes and there is interest and further funding available, some parts of the tool might be refurbished for public use. At the same time though, some of our consortium members already have monitoring tools available for the public. Feel free to contact them directly.