FIT researchers help find criminals and terrorists with newly developed technology

The technology developed at FIT BUT within the TENACITy (Travel Intelligence Against Crime and Terrorism) project helps security forces in the European Union to securely transfer information about passengers travelling through international airports. It aims to connect researchers, companies and security forces across Europe to create a platform that can search for suspicious passengers based on their travel patterns or reverse movement trajectories. Experts from the NES@FIT and Security@FIT research groups are collaborating on the project.

Since 2016, the European Union (EU) has adopted several laws that harmonise the approach to collecting and processing data on people travelling by air in Europe. The main objective of this policy is to effectively prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute serious crime (such as terrorism, smuggling and drug trafficking). "Air carriers operating in the EU are required to collect data in the form of so-called passenger named records (PNR), which contain personal data provided by passengers as part of the booking and check-in process. PNRs consist of, for example, the passenger's name, loyalty programme information, booking and travel dates, list of airports visited, seat number(s), baggage information, contact details and how the ticket was purchased and paid for. Based on PNR analysis, it is possible to identify criminals and their associates, detect suspicious travel patterns, thoroughly screen passengers against defined risks, as well as to advance the development of heuristics and risk criteria," explains Vladimír Veselý, principal investigator of the TENACITA project.

Smart data sharing as the key to success


How to smartly share PNR between dedicated security forces (in the Czech Republic, for example, the Passenger Information Department of the Czech Police) for processing across Europe? Researchers from the Institute of Information Systems and the Institute of Intelligent Systems at the Faculty of Information Technology of the BUT will be working on this in the coming year as part of the TENACITy project. In addition to researchers from our faculty, an international consortium led by European Dynamics is collaborating.

Collecting, enriching and sending thousands of PNR records is a challenging task. The role of the FIT team is precisely to keep everything running smoothly and securely. It has designed and is currently implementing a platform that includes a blockchain subsystem built on Hyperledger Fabric technology. Vladimír Veselý, Michal Koutenský, Ondřej Lichtner, Martin Perešíni and others are working on the project on behalf of the NES@FIT and Security@FIT research groups. This team, with many years of experience with cryptocurrencies, blockchain or smart contract technologies and distributed systems in general, is jointly developing a platform that has a much broader potential than just the one required by the project. In fact, the platform can form the chassis for any system for sharing sensitive information that is distributed, but inherently assures participants of integrity, confidentiality and auditability in sharing.