GRACE – Global Response Against Child Exploitation
The growth in online child sexual exploitation and abuse material is a significant challenge for European law enforcement agencies. Referrals of CSEM exceed the capacity of LEAs to respond in a practical and timely manner. To safeguard victims, prosecute offenders and limit the spread of CSEM, LEAs need a next-generation AI-powered investigative platform.
GRACE will apply proven techniques in ML to the referral and analysis process while embracing the technical, ethical and legal challenges unique to fighting CSE. GRACE will leverage resources already in place at Europol and the nine MS LEAs within the consortium. The goal for GRACE is to attempt to provide results early, frequently and flexibly, prioritising easy wins in the research plan (e.g., deduplication).
Unique to GRACE is the development and application of a Federated Learning approach to the challenge of optimising analysis and information flow in a privacy-aware and security-sensitive manner. GRACE will enable cooperation between LEAs in improving their capabilities while harnessing their experiential knowledge.
The results of GRACE will be available to Europol and the Member State LEAs for unrestricted use in their operations, helping to ensure their future technological autonomy.
For further information on GRACE visit the project website.