ORION

Acronym: ORION
Title: Optimized Risk-based Intelligence-driven Operations for Next-generation Secure, Reliable and Privacy-preserving Border Management

Can you give a brief overview of ORION and the challenges it wants to address?
Briefly, the ORION project’s core objective is to develop an innovative solution that will improve cross-border procedures and enhance border authorities’ operational capabilities on a day-to-day basis. The main challenges the ORION project seeks to address can be summarised as follows: (a) improve coordination between border, customs and security controls; (b) optimise resource allocation for border checks, while maintaining high security standards; (c) enhance threat detection capabilities of border authorities in challenging operational environments such as on roll-on-roll-off (RoRo) ferries where vehicles and passengers are in continuous movement; (d) enforce interoperability with existing databases, tools and legacy systems used across different EU Member States; (e) improve energy efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of crossing border operations, minimising queues and reducing traffic congestion in those points; and (f) ensure strong ethical and legal compliance of ORION’s solutions and technologies in order to protect travellers’ personal data.

How does ORION want to address these challenges?
The ORION project will enhance cross-border control mechanisms by developing a fully integrated framework that facilitates coordination between border, customs and security controls. This framework will rely on advanced interoperability mechanisms to allow seamless data and information flow across various security check points. The integration of AI-based decision support systems, tools and predictive analytics will enable real-time assessment of risk at different levels, which in turn will allow dynamic (re-)allocation of available resources in personnel and equipment where they are most needed, especially during high-traffic periods, or in response to situational factors, such as seasonal peaks, or other major events. ORION’s multi-modal data fusion capabilities will combine information from a wide range of sensors to create a holistic, real-time, operational picture at border crossing areas. The fusion of such data will allow for automated control actions, enhancing both the efficiency and accuracy of inspections, performing faster and more targeted inspections, which will ultimately reduce waiting times and increase throughput without compromising security.

What specific role does VUB play within the ORION consortium?
VUB-CDSL is the project’s legal and ethical partner, and task leader of T3.5 and T6.4 (Compliance, Ethics, and Societal Responsibility Monitoring). VUB-CDSL will develop a data and ethics management structure to ensure the ORION project’s activities and outputs are fully aligned with EU laws and ethical principles, and address any concerns related to data protection, privacy, discrimination bias and responsible use of AI in the project’s context.

How do you envision ORION contributing to broader societal impact?
The ORION project can have a broader societal impact as it aspires to develop new solutions that incorporate privacy-preserving methods and robust data protection frameworks, ensuring that EU citizens have confidence that border control systems achieve required security objectives and enable well-coordinated border checks of transnational flow of persons and goods, in alignment with fundamental rights, societal values, and legal protections of privacy.