Forensic linguistics is an emerging discipline that is used when documents of any kind become the subject of an investigation and thus concerns criminal offenses such as stalking, blackmail, hate postings and defamation. In addition, anonymous tips, letters of confession and manifestos can also be the focus of analyses.
If, as is often the case in such investigations, the only lead to the perpetrator is a linguistic one, forensic linguistics can determine characteristics of unknown authors, compare them to other texts of possible suspects and create language profiles for further investigation.
As these analyses have to be carried out manually by experts, their current use is limited. It is therefore particularly important to know in which situations experts should be consulted – and this is precisely where this project comes in.
The “TXT – Language as a Trace” project aims to create an AI-supported analysis tool that examines texts to determine whether in-depth analyses by experts are possible and worthwhile. In addition, a preliminary assessment will be made whether a similar linguistic trace already exists in the database, which could then be subjected to further analysis by experts.
Methodologically, this goal is to be achieved through the use of machine learning techniques, whereby an AI-based tool can make a time-efficient statement in these two areas – whether an analysis is possible and whether comparison texts should be analyzed in greater depth.
As a data basis for this project, the handwritten CV collection of the Document & Handwriting Investigation Unit in the Department of Forensic Science of the Criminal Intelligence Service Austria (BK) in the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) will be digitized and supplemented by further incriminated texts.
Projektleitung
Dr. Nina Kaiser
Hans Gross Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Kriminalwissenschaften
Institut für Strafrecht, Strafprozessrecht und Kriminologie
Universität Graz
Projekt- und Kooperationspartner:innen
- Bundesministerium für Inneres (BMI)
- Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology, Technische Universität Wien
- Business Analytics and Data Science Center, Universität Graz
- Institut für Anglistik, Universität Graz
- WareTec IT Solutions GmbH
Kontakt
Dr. Nina Kaiser
Hans Gross Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Kriminalwissenschaften
Universitätsstraße 15, Bauteil B3
8010 Graz, Österreich
+43 316 380 6668
zik@uni-graz.at
https://zentrum-kriminalwissenschaften.uni-graz.at/de/
