Technical Assistance

Expected Outcome:

Strengthening and improving beneficiaries’ investigative and operational capacity, as measured, for example, by the number of successful operations carried out with the purchased products to support investigations into activities detrimental to the financial interests of the Union. This includes the number of arrests, convictions, seizures, confiscations, recoveries, prevented losses to national and Union budgets and fraud schemes uncovered.

Scope:

The Commission will support the purchase and maintenance of:

• commercial specialised databases;
• data-analysis platforms capable of running analyses in ‘big data’ environments;
• risk and predictive analysis tools;
• data mining tools;
• systems supported by artificial intelligence used in preventing and combating irregularities, fraudulent activities and corruption detrimental to the financial interests of the EU; and,
• data collection tools for the purpose of risk and anti-fraud analysis.

These purchases include capacity-building in Member States to develop, use and share databases and business-intelligence tools. These purchases may also enable the acquisition of integrated packages that comprise: hardware, software (including tools using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and biometrics) and training. Specialised training for staff on how to operate these tools must be included as part of the action.