The advent of Artificial lntelligence (Al) holds great potential to improve criminal justice cooperation, both at home and across borders. The field of justice is undergoing digital transformation, and AI, as a set of different technologies, has an important role to play in helping judicial authorities operate more efficiently and effectively. Such performance gains can eventually result in better access to justice and reduced time to render judicial decisions.
The EU is making substantial progress on legislative developments and cross-border operational cooperation in the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) area. Furthermore, in order to support the relevant Member States' authorities in the fight against cross-border crime, EU JHA agencies, including eu-LISA and Eurojust, have identified the need to modernise digital infrastructure, and establish secure communication channels for the exchange of evidence between national authorities, as well as with EU judicial authorities.
ln recent years, with the support of the European Commission, eu-LISA and Eurojust have started preparing for digital judicial cooperation, including Al based solutions. Our
joint report and accompanying
factsheet build on that work and offer a high-level overview of the related legal and policy issues. Additionally, the report explores Al use-cases to highlight where its benefits in international judicial cooperation are. Focusing on natural language processing and computer vision, the report zooms in on two specific Al technologies and their practical application. Mindful of legal and ethical implications in relation to fundamental rights, the analysis considers how to balance the respect for individuals' freedoms with the use of Al technologies in criminal justice cooperation. The report recommends that a risk-based approach, integrating cost benefit analysis, fundamental rights and data protection assessments, is developed and applied to AI systems in practice.
Eurojust and eu-LISA have cemented a partnership that will only continue to grow thanks to the work on the European Criminal Records lnformation System - Third Country Nationals (ECRIS-TCN), the rollout of the e-CODEX infrastructure and the development of the Joint lnvestigation Teams Collaboration Platform. The report aims to contribute to the overall development of digital technologies in cross-border judicial cooperation, and to support practice and decision making in this field in Europe.
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