Capacity-Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia: Phase II

In recent years, cybercrime and other crimes involving electronic evidence have been steadily growing across the OSCE area and the world. Investigating and prosecuting these types of crimes pose several 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, along with specific knowledge and skills among criminal justice practitioners.

Like many other regions, the OSCE participating States in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) have been undergoing rapid digitalization. This has brought a number of opportunities but also new security risks, including a steep increase in both cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled crimes. In response to this emerging threat, in autumn 2020 the OSCE launched its first regional project to support criminal justice institutions in Central Asia to sustainably train their police officers and prosecutors on combating cybercrime. It was the first comprehensive initiative of its kind in the region.

By the project’s conclusion in summer 2024, almost 600 police officers and prosecutors from across the five Central Asian countries had benefited from the OSCE’s training activities, and law enforcement educational institutions in each state received IT equipment for new computer classrooms, as well as training materials. The project also strengthened regional dialogue on cybercrime training and education, by providing a platform to build new professional networks and partnerships.

At the same time, the cybercrime landscape has continued to evolve. The COVID-19 pandemic and the continuous development of digital technologies, including the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, have accelerated the growth in cyber-related criminal threats. The need to further strengthen criminal justice responses to cybercrimes and other crimes involving electronic evidence has become an even more pressing priority for Central Asian countries.

This project represents a second phase of the OSCE’s regional capacity-building initiative on combating cybercrime in Central Asia. It builds upon the achievements of the first phase and expands the OSCE’s assistance to several new areas, addressing the main gaps identified during the implementation of the first project from 2020 to 2024.

The project aims to support criminal justice authorities in Central Asia in investigating and prosecuting cybercrimes and other crimes involving electronic evidence in line with OSCE commitments, relevant international standards, and international human rights commitments. It is designed around four thematic pillars:

• The first pillar addresses the knowledge gap among police officers and prosecutors by strengthening the capacities of relevant educational institutions to develop and provide systematic and sustainable national professional training programmes on dealing with electronic evidence and investigating cybercrimes. It includes activities such as the development of national competency frameworks and training strategies, support for the development of curricula and e-learning management systems, a mentorship programme for lecturers, and support for rolling out national professional training programmes on cybercrime and electronic evidence in each beneficiary country.
• The second pillar aims to strengthen national capacities to identify, collect, and analyse electronic evidence. It includes activities such as assessments of national digital forensic capacities and needs, a study visit on good practices in digital forensics, the development of standard operating procedures and internal guidelines, a targeted training and mentorship program for digital forensic examiners, and support with hardware and software equipment for digital forensic labs.
• The third pillar aims to improve regional co-operation on cybercrime by providing relevant forums and tools. It includes activities such as the organization of a regional tabletop exercise and an adjacent workshop on cross-border cybercrime investigation, the establishment of a cybercrime focal points network, the development of an online platform for the network, and the organization of two regional workshops and a regional review conference for the network.
• Finally, the fourth pillar focuses on raising awareness about cybercrime threats among policymakers and the general public. It includes activities such as the development of a policy paper on international practices and models of criminal procedure legislation related to cybercrime and electronic evidence, the organization of national seminars for policymakers, and the conduct of public surveys and national public campaigns on cybercrime threats.

Underlining the importance of upholding international human rights commitments when investigating and prosecuting cybercrimes and other crimes involving electronic evidence is a cross-cutting priority addressed in all four pillars.

The project is implemented in close co-operation with all five OSCE field operations in Central Asia and is co-ordinated with other relevant international actors, namely the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), INTERPOL, the Council of Europe and the World Bank.