LinguaNet:...SETTING A LINGUIST TO CATCH A THIEF

Frontier controls in Europe are fading, some have vanished. Police communication across those frontiers is not however keeping pace with the changes. Whereas criminals and their spoils now move with greater freedom, the transmission of cross frontier police messages concerning such movements are hindered by a multitude of linguistic, procedural, administrative and legal impediments. The European Union is policed by some 1.4 million police officers. Within the fifteen countries, over 100 independent police forces operate in 18 languages. Many messages which might help put criminals behind bars, restore property to its rightful owners and reunite family members are simply not attempted. Although there are organisations such as Interpol which can aid police officers, they are not generally set up to handle queries "in real time". This paper introduces Test-Bed LinguaNet a project in multilingual, multimedium cross border police communications. A prototype special purpose network has been installed between the police of several European countries. The purpose of the project is to extend this prototype with particular respect to the linguistic facilities and the connectivity which can be offered to the users. A similar paper was presented at CLAW '96, KULeuven Centre for Computational Linguistics, in March of this year.