Octopus Project Activities

Back C-PROC: Over 500 professionals from 100 countries attended the Octopus Conference 2025

Between 4-6 June 2025, the 15^th edition of the Octopus Conference took place, in Strasbourg, France. Organised by the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe (C-PROC), the event brought over 500 professionals from around 100 countries to exchange on electronic evidence, artificial intelligence crime, cyberviolence, cyber interference with democracy, crypto-investigations, pig-butchering, cybercrime as war crime, as well as youth and cybercrime.

The Conference was opened by Alain Berset (Secretary General of the Council of Europe), Jonathan Attard (Minister of Justice, on behalf of the Presidency of Malta of the Committee of Ministers) and Samuel Nartey George (Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations of Ghana).

Key messages emerged from each session and workshop, as well as from the overall conference, with a renewed invitation to make use of the tools provided by the framework of the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention) and related standards for continuing the international cooperation against cybercrime.

Participants (public sector, private sector, civil society, academia) also welcomed that São Tomé and Príncipe as well as Vanuatu deposited instruments of accession to the Convention on Cybercrime, that Fiji signed the Second Protocol on electronic evidence to this treaty, and that Malta joined the First Protocol on xenophobia and racism during the Conference.

Organised in cooperation with the Presidency of Malta in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Octopus Conference is part of the Octopus Project of the Council of Europe which is currently funded by voluntary contributions from Canada, France, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Malta, Netherlands, UK and US. The Octopus Conference is also supported by the budget of the Council of Europe and the European Union through joint projects implemented by the Cybercrime Division.

Octopus Conference 2025: Dedicated website