Capacity Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia

Cybercrime is steadily increasing in scope and sophistication. Its methods are quickly extending into the areas of traditional ‘offline’ crime, while electronic evidence is playing an ever more important role in all criminal investigations. The growing number of Internet users worldwide, coupled with the anonymity of cyberspace and the combination of high profits and relatively low risks, provide more and more opportunities to exploit digital technologies for criminal ends. This is resulting in increased numbers of victims and economic damage.

Investigating and prosecuting cybercrime poses a number of challenges for criminal justice authorities. It requires not only adequate legal frameworks and sufficient technical means, but also high levels of national and international co-operation, and specific knowledge and skills among criminal justice practitioners. Amid the increasing number of criminal activities either facilitated by, or conducted using, digital technologies, combating this threat is a priority for law enforcement agencies across the OSCE region.

This project aims to strengthen the capacities of the five OSCE participating States in Central Asia, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, to sustainably educate and train their police officers and prosecutors on combating cybercrime in a manner that is consistent with OSCE commitments, relevant international standards and international human rights obligations. It is a first such comprehensive regional capacity-building initiative in Central Asia.

The use of digital technologies is steadily growing across the OSCE participating States in Central Asia. This has brought a number of opportunities but also new security risks, including the increase in both cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled crimes. Criminal justice institutions in the region, as in other parts of the world, face challenges in effectively responding to this emerging trend.

Based on a comprehensive needs assessment conducted in late 2018, the OSCE designed a multi-year regional capacity-building initiative on cybercrime for Central Asia. The project’s development was closely consulted with the OSCE’s key partners in this area, namely the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and INTERPOL. Given the novelty of the topic for the region, it was decided the project would focus on educational aspects and so address one of the main challenges related to combating cybercrime – the knowledge gap among criminal justice practitioners, in particular police officers and prosecutors.

The project is implemented in close co-operation with the OSCE field operations and law enforcement educational institutions in Central Asia. It consists of several phases. The first phase includes regional training activities that combine a training-of-trainers programme with cybercrime-related thematic courses. The thematic courses cover the following topics: handling digital evidence by first responders, investigating cryptocurrencies and the Dark Web, online and open-source intelligence investigations, and introduction to open-source computer forensics. In addition, the project donated to each beneficiary country the IT equipment required for one new computer classroom to be used for national training activities.

In the second phase, the project replicates at the national level the thematic training courses delivered regionally under the first phase. The courses are organized in close co-operation with law enforcement educational institutions in each beneficiary country and the content is adjusted to the respective national context and needs. The courses take place in the new classrooms donated through the project.

The third phase includes further national training activities, and the development of foundational training curricula and materials to be used by the law enforcement educational institutions in their future courses and seminars.