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Back C-PROC opened its doors to youth and civil society representatives from 13 countries for a thematic study visit on cybercrime and electronic evidence

C-PROC opened its doors to youth and civil society representatives from 13 countries for a thematic study visit on cybercrime and electronic evidence

On 5 September 2025 the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe (C-PROC) opened its doors to the Group of the European Youth for Change (GEYC) NGO in Romania for a thematic visit to learn more about Council of Europe’s work against cybercrime and cyberviolence.

The thematic visit was part of the project titled “Digital bridges: Youth work and citizenship in the digital world” implemented by GEYC and was organised in the framework of the European Digital Citizenship Week. The initiative was a follow-up to the Youth and Cybercrime workshop held in Strasbourg during the Council of Europe’s Octopus Conference 2025.

38 youth and youth workers, CSOs representatives and teachers from Romania, Bulgaria, Malta, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Ukraine, Slovakia took part in the thematic visit and were introduced to the framework of the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention) backed by the work of the Cybercrime Convention Committee (T-CY) and supported by C-PROC’s capacity building projects worldwide. They learned more about the challenges of cybercrime and electronic evidence, the criminal justice response to cybercrime (including crimes involving cryptocurrencies and AI), and the support offered by the Council of Europe to countries worldwide.

Prevention through partnerships between the law enforcement agencies and civil society was discussed as well. Speaking at the event, a representative of the Romanian National Police outlined how national campaigns and joining forces with NGOs can increase safety online through awareness raising and strengthened resilience, treating human vulnerability as even more important than technology vulnerability in view of ensuring crime prevention.

In the second part of the visit, the Cyberviolence Resource initiated through the Octopus Project implemented by C-PROC and Council of Europe’s latest developments and plans in this direction were presented as well. To conclude, a practical session on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) tools to protect safety online engaged participants in a discussion on how every Internet user can be better equipped to not fall victim to crimes in cyberspace.

Council of Europe: Cybercrime Programme Office (C-PROC)