Hon. Suresh Pachouri, Minister of State, India
Hon. Shivraj Patil, Minister of Home Affairs, India
Mr Vijay Shanker, Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, India
and delegate for Asia on the INTERPOL Executive Committee,
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

         I wish to start by thanking our host country, India, and particularly the NCB New Delhi and the Indian Central Bureau of Investigations led by Mr. Vijay SHANKER for organizing this 7th international conference on cyber crime. Mr. SHANKER also represents the Asian region as a delegate on the INTERPOL Executive Committee and it is thanks to his support that we are able to meet here today and work in optimal circumstances.

         The first cyber crime conference took place in Lyon, France in 1995. Since then, Information and Communication technology has undergone a quiet, yet fundamental, revolution. In today’s world, the Internet is an essential part in the daily lives of many of us. Not only do new web-based applications surface almost weekly, but more people than ever are using the Internet personally and professionally on a daily basis. According to the Indian Ministry of IT and Communication, the number of Indian Internet subscribers has doubled just in the last six months alone.

         A single glance at the agenda for our work over the next three days shows how this global trend affects law enforcement throughout the world; we will discuss issues as diverse and wide ranging as identity theft, online bank fraud, gaming on the Internet, the risks of terrorist use of the Internet, and online child abuse, to name but a few.

         Relatively new forms of crime such as phishing or denial of service attacks continue to rise sharply from year to year. According to IBM, any given person is now more likely to become a victim of cyber crime rather than a physical form of crime. But very often, the two go hand-in -hand, as is the case with sexual abuse of children.

         With these –very real -threats in mind, the theme for this conference is particularly well chosen: “UPCOMING CAPACITY OF CYBER POLICE.”

         Firstly, because it shows our collective resolve not to let the Internet become a “no man’s land”, where criminals have the upper hand and risk no punishment for their crimes. Our essential role, as police, is to prevent and investigate crime. Cyber crime is no different: we have an obligation to the world’s citizens and societies to do everything necessary to enable ourselves to protect them online to the same extent as we protect them in their communities and on the streets.

         Secondly, to be successful in this endeavor, the key element in the strategies we need to adopt is enhancing “capacity”. Good police work requires skilled investigators and, by joining our respective forces, by sharing the ‘too few’ professionals skilled in cyber-security and by training new officials to become experts in the field, the law enforcement community will be better equipped and stronger to fight cyber crime.

         One of INTERPOL’s priorities in helping police forces around the world to strengthen their ability to combat cyber crime was to have endorsed the creation of a worldwide operational network of National Central Reference Points, using INTERPOL’s global secure police communications system, I-24/7. The theory underlying such creation was to enable police to immediately identify experts in other countries and obtain immediate assistance in computer-related investigations and evidence collection. Because these investigations are extremely time-sensitive, the National Reference Points was designed to respond to requests for assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

         The existence of such contact points on a 24/7 basis is explicitly foreseen by the G-8’s work in this area and by the Convention on cyber crime of the Council of Europe. INTERPOL NCBs have already established 111 reference points in their countries. But, in many countries these reference points are not the same as those created and sponsored by the G-8 or those contemplated by the Council of Europe.

         So, I would like this conference to provide honest feedback on whether the INTERPOL National Central Reference Points work in practice like they do in design. I also would like this conference to determine whether INTERPOL has created unnecessary duplication or competition with the 24/7 Cyber-crime contact network established by the G-8. In this field the resources are too scarce for their to be unnecessary duplication or competition. We must integrate our work so that in each country there is one central contact point for emergency cyber-crime related response.

         A second priority for INTERPOL to better fight cyber crime is the provision of specific and specialized training. Training is such an important and intrinsic part of our efforts against crime that INTERPOL has decided to make it one of its core functions. It means that we are further increasing our training activities in many law enforcement areas. This is why INTERPOL now offers the Training and Operational Standards Initiative (known as TOPSI), aimed specifically at cyber crime. A main component of the TOPSI project is to enable officers to join the train-the-trainer workshops, which are held every year. The ‘train-the-trainer’ formula is valuable and cost-effective to the global law enforcement community, especially in an area where our expertise and resources are already strained.

         In the Asia-Pacific region, two train-the-trainer workshops will be held every year during the next five years. This will take place in great part thanks to a 20,000 US dollars donation by JP Morgan, and Microsoft for its support of several of our initiatives to fight cyber-crime. But, if we are honest and look at the risk before us worldwide and the need for training by our police worldwide, INTERPOL and its member countries will need to raise 100 if not 1000 times this amount to keep pace with the cyber-criminal threat.

         We need to build strong alliances between the private sector and public sector to respond to the risk before us and to satisfy the demand for training. The law enforcement community needs to be able to rely on expertise more readily available in the private sector. The very people who have been pioneering the applications that have made the Internet so important to our daily lives can – and must - play an essential role in keeping the Internet safe.

         In the near future, I want INTERPOL to enable police officers and experts from the private sector and other international organizations, to work closely together to respond to and prevent cyber crime. Currently, our Organization is developing plans to create Global and Regional Anti-Crime Centers, one of which will be dedicated to high-tech crime. We envision that a properly equipped center, where police officers from INTERPOL member countries can work alongside experts with specific skills from the private sector, which rotate through the Center on a needs basis, is something the law enforcement community as a whole would benefit from.

         In combination with the experts from the integrated national points of contacts for responding to emergency cyber-crime alerts a global anti-crime center could help police around the world to obtain investigative support, training, and expert information from a combined team of police officers and computer experts. If the interest is there, INTERPOL is willing to help create such a global center. INTERPOL realizes that this is an ambitious idea, but we are determined to turn it into a reality because this problem is too big for even the G-8 and Council of Europe – it requires a truly global response. Ladies and gentlemen, as I said this is our 7th Cyber-crime conference. Based on the ever increasing threat in front of us in this field and the ever expanding of the Internet global community, it is time for us to be ambitious in the goals that we set for ourselves. As INTERPOL’s Secretary General, I personally commit myself and my organization to do all in our power to meet and satisfy any ambitious goal that comes out of this conference – if it is built on consensus.

         It we work towards building consensus that police are properly equipped and trained to prevent and investigate cyber crime , we will can catch up with criminals and terrorists using the Internet, and keep the world of the Internet safer for the benefit of us all. I wish you a fruitful and successful conference.

         Thank you.