As technology continues to take over our lives, and digitalisation gathers pace, cybercrime is also growing. Europol and Eurojust have published a third joint report identifying and categorising the current developments and common challenges in combating cybercrime, which fall into five different areas.
- Loss of data: electronic data is the key to successful investigations in all the cybercrime areas, but the possibilities to obtain such data have been significantly limited.
- Loss of location: recent trends have led to a situation in which law enforcement may no longer establish the physical location of the perpetrator, the criminal infrastructure or electronic evidence.
- Challenges associated with national legal frameworks: the differences in domestic legal frameworks in EU Member States often prove to be serious impediments to international cybercrime investigations.
- Obstacles to international cooperation: in an international context, no common legal framework exists for the expedited sharing of evidence (as does exist for the preservation of evidence). There is also a clear need for a better mechanism for cross-border communication and the swift exchange of information.
- Challenges of public-private partnerships: cooperation with the private sector is vital for combating cybercrime, yet no standardised rules of engagement are in place, and investigations can thus be hampered.
Both the EAST Payments Task Force (EPTF) and the EAST Expert Group on All Terminal Fraud (EGAF) cover cybercrime and its impact on payments and terminals. Both are public-private sector platforms where experts come together to focus on such issues. EAST National Members also share cybercrime related information with each other, and through the EAST platform, with law enforcement agencies across the world.