Vigia_ANG | CRPC

MONITORING AI-FACILITATED FRAUD

Current status and projections regarding fraud facilitated by artificial intelligence, as well as the most effective approaches to addressing it.

The VIGIA Project

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the landscape of fraud by enhancing fraudsters’ technical capabilities and social engineering strategies. This evolution poses new challenges for public institutions, businesses, professionals, and the general public, who must be able to better understand the risks, identify new trends, and adapt their practices.

VIGIA (Monitoring AI-Facilitated Fraud) is a research project led by a team of co-researchers and students at the Université de Montréal, funded by a grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec in partnership with the ministère de la Sécurité publique.
VIGIA aims to better understand the scope and evolution of AI-enabled fraud in Quebec, to evaluate current responses, and to anticipate emerging risks over the coming years.

The project is based on an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional approach that brings together expertise in cybercrime, artificial intelligence, and ybersecurity, as well as partners from law enforcement, the private sector, community organizations, and government.

VIGIA’s work combines, in particular, the analysis of fraud cases, open-source intelligence, the study of criminal and institutional ecosystems, and a forward-looking approach involving experts. This approach will help document current trends, better understand the evolution of fraudulent schemes, and identify the most promising areas for intervention.

Objectives

The four main objectives:

To assess the current role of AI-based tools in fraudulent schemes targeting individuals in Quebec, drawing on the scattered data currently held by the project partners, which will be consolidated for this purpose;
To catalog the institutional responses currently implemented by public and private actors at the local, national, and international levels—whether preventive, enforcement, or surveillance measures relying on technical solutions, organizational procedures, and policies, or awareness-raising activities and to identify their implementation costs, anticipated effectiveness, and barriers to deployment;
Conduct a robust prospective study of emerging risks in this field over a 3- to 5-year horizon, taking into account their social, economic, and legal impacts, and consolidate the knowledge of experts in the field to propose innovative measures capable of mitigating these risks;
Produce and disseminate training and awareness-raising tools for anti-fraud professionals and the public to familiarize them with current and future risks arising from the use of AI by fraudsters.

From Research to Action

VIGIA places a high priority on knowledge mobilization. The research findings will contribute to the creation of a toolkit for practitioners, including data, analyses of fraud schemes, monitoring tools, training, and awareness-raising materials.

The goal is to make research-based knowledge available to those responsible for preventing, detecting, and combating AI-facilitated fraud, thereby helping to strengthen the collective capacity to address this evolving phenomenon.

Researchers