The infrastructure to be set up is called JusticeLink. The NFI and WODC are developing the infrastructure with partners including the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), SURF and the Ministry of Justice and Security’s Datalab. The WODC investigates the anticipated effects of policy, using data from justice and security chain partners and other sources, for example data on reoffending by convicts. The NFI is a knowledge and expertise centre for forensic analysis and holds forensic and other data as a result of performing forensic analyses – for example, about which chemicals drugs consist of. Both institutes analyse the data in order to identify trends, developments or connections.

The new infrastructure will make it possible to analyse the organisations’ own data or link, compare and analyse data from other organisations in the criminal justice and security chain. For instance, data about the judicial system, offences and detection. The data in question are often complex, and privacy rules, data protection, the variable quality and significance of data, the reliability of calculations and the reliability of any algorithms used all need to be taken into account. Precisely for this reason, there is a need for an infrastructure with all the conditions and laws and regulations factored into it. Bringing together data will allow the required actions for compliance to be tackled more efficiently. For example, anonymising data. It will also enhance the quality of research, because it will improve the ability to register and update information, leading to better insight. In addition, the increased volume of data will offer opportunities to ask new questions – for example, less targeted questions, which are more likely to generate unexpected insights. The infrastructure will also enable a lot of data to be analysed at the same time. This will provide better insight into what is happening but will also help explain why it is happening.

“Society is digitalising and the growing quantities of data generated as a result offer opportunities for data analysis”, says Gerty Lensvelt-Mulders, director of the WODC. “Handling large and complex datasets is a challenge. We are pleased to have been awarded this grant by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which is specifically intended for institutes for applied research (TO2) and national knowledge institutes. Because we need unique IT solutions to be able to meet these challenges.” Annemieke de Vries, Director of Science and Technology at the NFI agrees: “I would add that the major challenge of this age is that so much is technically possible. That will only increase thanks to the rapid developments in AI. On the other hand, we are also dealing with highly sensitive data. We need to limit the accompanying risks by means of compliance rules and techniques to anonymise data.”

The national knowledge institutes NFI and WODC are taking on that challenge, with TNO providing knowledge on building the infrastructure for JusticeLink, and SURF and the Ministry of Justice and Security’s Datalab offering knowledge on hosting and additional expertise. “It is becoming ever more important that we are able to link digital trace evidence and discover patterns hidden in data more quickly. Repeatability of analyses is an important element of that in order to discover trends over time, such as results of policy changes and changes in production methods of synthetic drugs. This will allow us to adapt implementation and policy more quickly”, says De Vries. Lensvelt-Mulders: “It is now up to the NFI and WODC to have a sustainable data infrastructure in place by 2028 with the help of our knowledge, skills and resources, focused on applied research, that will help us continue to answer important questions about justice and safety – with the ultimate goal of maintaining and improving a just and safe society.”