Technology becomes key in criminal/cyber investigations
Central security forces that intervene in cases like money laundering, video surveillance and child sexual abuse are using artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled software that, according to experts, allows them to save at least half a year of investigation by analyzing large volumes. Information is far from “empowering” the researcher’s work and replacing it.
The data was revealed by five experts during a summit on cybernetic affairs, where they noted the current importance of AI in investigations, noting that it “allows to reduce” the time of investigations and affirmed that it “strengthens”. Agents, though, insist that human work is “irreversible.”
“AI allows us to drastically reduce times. The amount of information available on the internet and at our fingertips is enormous. If we do it manually it can take days. But with these tools, the probability of success in the investigation is increasing,” commented Major Juan Encina of the National Gendarmerie.
For his part, Eduardo Negreros, manager of a company that supplies the feds with “pathfinder” software — capable of mapping all the communications on the prized phone — previously said “cases that took more than eight months to solve are now solved. It only takes one.”
Tool
“We need to do human things and let machines do machines. Imagine how many conversations or photos you have on your phone. Imagine you’re analyzing more than 30 phones. How do we find relevant information? It’s not a human’s job,” he said. Negreros explained that the software interprets images and chats and can establish the context in which they are sent.
On the other hand, Hernán Grado, sales manager of a software company, pointed out that AI is often used in suspected cases such as child or sexual abuse and video surveillance, and “the best use of AI is as a complement to the researcher, especially focusing on monitoring and surveillance tasks”.
“A researcher equipped with AI will do his job better than someone without, because the process is greatly accelerated. That’s why an operator has to look at 100 cameras at the same time. Only then can AI detect irregular movements such as zigzagging movements of a vehicle. It can also detect photos, objects, people. In social networks These operations also help identify suspected cases of child or sexual abuse,” he clarified.
Additionally, AI-based systems are being implemented in the financial sector, where “any transaction made by credit card has a model that approves or rejects it in 20 milliseconds.”
transactions
“Today, any medium-sized bank in Argentina receives about 1 million transactions per day. In money laundering cases, we’ve had some clients put those million transactions through a sieve, an AI model that indicates whether their activity is suspicious. Then a human crosses it with other data. That is why I believe AI is a complement to human labor”, he continued.
Caio Motta, representative of a blockchain analytics platform, noted that “0.24 percent of cryptocurrency activity -$20 billion- is of illegal origin.”
“We are using machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to detect these transactions and look at accounts controlled by the same identity and receive improper transactions,” he revealed.
For his part, Commissioner General Alejandro Ñamandú considered the incorporation of AI in the country’s police forces “fundamental”, while he stressed that these measures could be used “with political decision and training of police and legal actors”.
“All of this is necessary to provide the legal framework for the proper use of these tools. We understand that regulation by states and provinces is slow. Cybercrime is here to stay, and growing in scope,” said the Director of Federal Investigations Oversight.
In this regard, the Tucumán public prosecutor’s office in August said it has integrated software with AI for digitally filed complaints.
“Artificial intelligence takes patterns from other similar crimes and creates a list of criminal acts that are consistent or have common characteristics,” explained Edmundo Jiménez, the prosecutor of the province.
“To give an example of the behavior of this tool, it is worth highlighting an event in the north of the city, in which the software detected a person who had already been identified in another event. Then it goes to the prosecutor’s office, so that the analysis can be carried out to determine whether it is the same person who committed this act or someone else chosen by the AI. Jimenez said.
