E-crime presents as one of the major challenges of the future to Australasian law enforcement. As Information and Communications Technology (ICT) becomes even more pervasive, aspects of electronic crime will feature in all forms of criminal behaviour, even those matters currently regarded as 'traditional' offences. It will also feature in many transnational crimes involving drug trafficking, terrorism, people smuggling and money laundering.

While many crimes will be old style crimes simply involving the use of ICT, new forms of crime will also emerge. In addition, the barriers to commiting e-crime, have dropped significantly and criminals are becoming even younger. It would seem that people who would not dream of stealing or maliciously damaging other people's property in real life have no qualms or second thoughts in relation to the opportunities and challenges presented by the Internet.

In some respects, the growth in the uptake of ICT, including the Internet, presents as great a challenge for policing as the introduction of the telephone and the motor vehicle. It could be argued that, while there will always be a role for traditional investigative techniques, e-crime presents as a new form of business that will require a fundamental paradigm shift in policing. Dealing with the global aspects of the issue will be particularly challenging.

Policing will also need to be very selective about the range of e-crime incidents that it responds to and must carefully determine assessment and prioritisation models, as there will never be complete policing of all e-crimes. Moreover, the costs of investigation will be high and there will be a need to respond in a much shorter time frame, increasing pressure on already stretched resources.

Police Commissioners and Ministers recognised the importance of responding to this critical emerging issue and put in place a number of initiatives to ensure that policing is prepared to prevent, reduce and respond to manifestations of electronic crime. In doing so, it built upon some longstanding initiatives of the ACPR, such as the Australasian Computer Crime Program (established in 1992) and its subprogram, the Australasian Computer Crime Managers Group.

A major project on electronic crime was sponsored by Commissioners as a result of their March 2000 annual conference and the ACPR was given the role of chairing an Australasian E-Crime Working Party. During the course of this project, the ACPR played a major role in the conduct of a technology environmental scan, the development of a scoping paper on E-crime (The Virtual Horizon: Meeting the Law Enforcement Challenges), which was published in September 2000, and the production of an E-Crime Policing Strategy, which was publicly launched by Police Commissioners in March 2001.

The E-crime project is a good example of where the ACPR involvement has successfully extended (with Board of Control and APMC approval) beyond traditional research to project management, policy development and coordination.

The ACPR has presented on the e-crime issue at key national and international forums, and national police courses, as a part of consultation with key stakeholders and the marketing of the Strategy. Copies of presentations on e-crime are available under Cooperation and Coordination.

Other initiatives that the ACPR has been involved in include the development of a First Responders Guide for police in relation to the seizure of electronic evidence and the development of a comprehensive package of e-crime competencies.

A key development in recent times has been the establishment of an Australian High Tech Crime Centre (AHTCC), hosted by the Australian Federal Police. In 2003, the AHTCC was given the coordination role in e-crime and the ACPR has significantly wound back its involvement in this area.