Contract: FP7-SEC-2007-1
YEAR1_Publishable_Summary
Strategic Pan-European Ballistics Intelligence Platform for
Combating Organised Crime and Terrorism FP7 Contract: FP7-SEC-2007-1
– Publishable Summary –
Annual Report – Year 1
Revision: Final
Page 1/4
Contract: FP7-SEC-2007-1
YEAR1_Publishable_Summary
1 Publishable Summary
a. Project summary and objectives
The ODYSSEY project is researching the creation and development of a secure platform for the
sharing of information about gun-crimes throughout the EU. The ODYSSEY project will show that
data from multiple, heterogeneous sources can be combined in a high volume data repository and
exercised using semantic knowledge extraction and data-mining to facilitate appropriate, fast and
responsible decision making and alerts.
The ODYSSEY project's objectives are:

The creation of European Standards for ballistics data collection, storage and sharing.
 The demonstration of a secure, interoperable platform for the management of crime
information and the sharing of ballistics intelligence.
 The development of techniques for the mining of data and extraction of knowledge about
gun crime across the EU.
 Exploitation of automated and semi-automated processing and analysis of crime data to
generate Red Flags showing situational awareness through the analysis of complex data
with multiple reference models.

To adopt new and improved methods for the detection of micro- and nano-forensic
information that supplement current approaches.

To enhance mutual co-operation, security and sustainability across the EU.
b. Work performed so far
The project has successfully achieved the delivery of all its first year objectives. These cover the
management of the project, some user requirements work, the definition of security and
infrastructure architectures for the system and a plan for the dissemination of research findings.
In the description of work these are identified as:
D 1.1 Project Management Plan (PMP) and Project QA, Overall PM activities
D 2.1 Odyssey Requirements, evaluation and validation
D 5.1 Security requirements and architecture specification
Revision: Final
Page 2/4
Contract: FP7-SEC-2007-1
YEAR1_Publishable_Summary
D 6.1 Architectural Design
D 7.1 Dissemination Plan
Beyond the production of specified deliverables the project has made excellent progress in both
management and technical development. We have created a united consortium with active cooperation between all partners. Regular project management events include meetings and
conference calls supported by collaborative documents on a SharePoint server and an active email
list.
Technically the project has met the goals set for the first year and has exceeded expectations in
both quality and quantity. An infrastructure has been designed and tested based on Java
messaging services and XML formatted messages. We have prototyped user interfaces with novel
features such as automated generation of directed graphs through drag-and-drop of components
which identify incidents of crime. A security architecture has been specified which uses industrystandard encryption and applies this to inputs to and outputs from the message queue.
An initial ontology and database structure have been created to demonstrate connectivity from
the message queue to the back-end systems. The ontology has been used to experiment with
semantic querying. Results from querying both the ontological engine and the database have
been displayed in the same interface.
c. Current results
In its first year the project has delivered a working prototype which shows that the initial ideas
from the Description of Work are valid and that implementing them is feasible. In some areas
there have been problems. Querying the ontology through Jena has not worked as we hoped due
to problems with scalability and performance.
The project is now working towards a second prototype which builds on our successes so far.
d. Expected outcomes from the project
The ODYSSEY project will demonstrate a framework and reference application that will extend the
management of ballistics information across the wide range of IT platforms within the EU.
Outcomes from the project will include:

A secure shared ICT platform for the sharing of information about serious crime and
terrorism where firearms are involved.

Improved collection techniques for crime and terrorist scenes and laboratories;
Revision: Final
Page 3/4
Contract: FP7-SEC-2007-1
YEAR1_Publishable_Summary

The ability to transmit images and access files for cross correlations with other agencies.

The ability to engage in advanced querying, knowledge extraction and intelligence sharing.

The exploitation of existing, so-called, legacy systems.
e. Expected impact and usage
The Odyssey project will impact upon law enforcement and on technology providers.
It will show to Law Enforcement agencies that they can benefit from automated analyses of shared
data. Automated analysis will extract relationships and knowledge from data set which might
otherwise have lain hidden. An automated system can be used to test hypotheses easily and
quickly and help identify useful lines of enquiry.
Technology providers will benefit through the creation of new standards. Odyssey will develop
best-practices in the harmonisation and standardisation of ballistics data. These best-practices
will encourage common formats which will facilitate data interchange between systems. Ballistic
technology providers can develop interfaces to support these formats and compete on
functionality and quality rather than closing markets because of proprietary formats.
The project will create opportunities for the exploitation of its IP.
2. Project Objectives for the Period
This period the deliverables for the project were
D 1.1 Project Management Plan (PMP) and Project QA, Overall PM activities
D 2.1 Odyssey Requirements, evaluation and validation
D 5.1 Security requirements and architecture specification
D 6.1 Architectural Design
D 7.1 Dissemination Plan
Revision: Final
Page 4/4