This month we would like to highlight VIGILANT, a 3-year and €4m project which aims to equip European Police Authorities with advanced technologies from academia to detect and analyse disinformation campaigns that lead to criminal activities. The VIGILANT project brings together 17 leading European partners from academia, industry, government research centres, and four Police Authorities in an interdisciplinary consortium to combat this threat to societal cohesion and democracy.
VIGILANT will assist in the detection and analysis of disinformation from major online sources, in all modalities and in multiple languages whether it be text, image or video content. VIGILANT aims to equip the authorities with cutting edge disinformation identification and analysis tools, technology, and knowledge that would make their fight against criminal online content easier and more effective.
Prof. Brendan Spillane, VIGILANT’s coordinator and ADAPT researcher at UCD, was instrumental in launching this project along with VIGILANT coordinator and ADAPT PI Prof. Owen Conlan. In particular Prof. Spillane’s work with this project involved engaging with ADAPT colleagues to drive the proposal for VIGILANT which, coupled with his excellent research, has helped him to secure an academic post in UCD.
