The 'ITFlows' was an EU-funded Horizon Research and Innovation Project, which lasted from 2021 to 2023. The project focused on developing tools to predict migration to the EU. The project also developed a specific tool (EUMIGRATOOL) to predict the arrival of asylum seekers and detect attitudes and potential tensions related to migration and asylum.
The investigative media outlet Disclose reported that members of the ethical board for the ITFlows project have warned that the programme could be easily misused. In January and June 2021, they reported that the “ITFlows consortium is fully aware of the risks and their potential impacts in terms of jeopardising human rights that both empirical migration research activities and technological developments foreseen in the Project may pose“. The information provided by the algorithm “may pose several risks if misused for stigmatising, discriminating, harassing, or intimidating individuals, especially those that are in vulnerable situations such as migrants, refugees and asylum seekers“.