German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space is funding the project with around EUR 880,000 through its Validation of the Technological and Social Innovation Potential of Scientific Research (VIP+) program
In cases involving serious criminal offenses, the police are permitted to conduct acoustic surveillance of telephones, private premises, or vehicles to record conversations of suspected offenders or to analyze chat communications. When criminal groups communicate in languages other than German, language mediators or so-called intercept interpreters-translators (IITs) are tasked with rendering the content into German. Their role extends beyond mere linguistic transfer to include the communication of additional information relevant to the investigation. The results of their work also serve as evidence in court proceedings. To ensure effective crime prevention and prosecution, the police, the prosecuting attorneys, and courts depend on precise intercept interpreting and translation.
This is the very topic of the new research project on "Qualified language mediation for efficient forensic communication surveillance", QSEK for short. The interdisciplinary research consortium – involving academics from translation studies, law, and criminology – aims to raise awareness of the specific challenges and importance of intercept interpreting and translation among law enforcement, the judiciary, and the language services sector. It seeks to develop general standards for the legally sound use of language-mediated evidence and to provide targeted training for both language professionals and police personnel.
For the police and the judiciary, the professionalization of IITs is expected to yield significant cost savings as high-quality translation enhances investigative efficiency and reduces the risk of misinterpretation. At the same time, standardized procedures facilitate the work of prosecuting authorities, enable the assessment of AI-based applications, and strengthen the legal reliability of evidence derived from intercept interpreting and translation.
For IITs themselves, the introduction of a standardized qualification profile creates opportunities to acquire both specialized translation and forensic competencies, as well as to prepare themselves for the professional use of AI technologies. Ultimately, these innovations contribute to fair and transparent criminal proceedings and uphold the right of defendants to be heard, thereby reinforcing public trust in law enforcement and judicial processes.
The practical implementation of the project results is of central importance. In the framework of the Validation of the Technological and Social Innovation Potential of Scientific Research (VIP+) program, this transfer will be supported by the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf as innovation mentor. In addition, the project is supported by an advisory board comprising the German Federal Public Prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice and representatives from the German Federal Criminal Police Office, the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office, the German Federal Association of Interpreters and Translators (BDÜ), the German Institute for Human Rights, and criminal defense attorney Dr. Alexander Paradissis (WisteV). This broad backing underscores that QSEK addresses an urgent and widely recognized need.
The project supervisors, namely Professor Cornelia Griebel of the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Chief of the Criminal Division Joachim Faßbender, and Professor Lars Berster of the German Police University (DHPol), welcome this strong support from key stakeholders. They are confident that QSEK will provide a comprehensive solution to current challenges in intercept interpreting and translation. By integrating academic research, practice-oriented training, and support for technological innovation, the project is intended to make a sustainable contribution to high-quality and efficient language mediation in this field.
The German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR) is providing financial support of EUR 878,799 to the QSEK project through its VIP+ validation funding program.
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