Cybercrime and other crimes involving electronic evidence affect the right to private life of hundreds of millions of individuals whose personal data are stolen; attack the dignity and the integrity of individuals; are a threat to the freedom of expression, public security but also democratic stability.
An effective criminal justice response is needed in order to protect societies against cybercrime while also protecting individuals’ fundamental human rights.
The new HELP course is aiming to introduce the basic concepts related to cybercrime and electronic evidence by makingan overview of the challenges in investigating cybercrime, as well as the difficulties in collecting and handling of electronic evidence.
The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime remains the main reference throughout the whole course as it provides tools to deal with the above challenges for the protection of human rights and enforcement of legal order.
This course was developed jointly by the Cybercrime Programme Office (C-PROC) and the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Programme of the Council of Europe, with support of the Cybercrime@Octopus and the follow-up Octopus Project, funded by voluntary contributions. Joint EU-CoE projects GLACY+ and CyberEast also contributed to the development of this course.
The ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine is being accompanied by massive cyberattacks and therefore strengthening capacities for cybersecurity and on cybercrime is now more important than ever.
This new HELP course is addressed to the criminal justice authorities worldwide, legal practitioners, defence attorneys, professionals for child protection, and anyone willing to improve their knowledge on cybercrime and electronic evidence.
Comprising 7 substantive modules, the course offers learners practical tools to understand how to better reconcile the procedural powers to tackle cybercrime and the handling of electronic evidence with human rights standards:
- Module 1: Introduction to computers, networks and cybercrime
- Module 2: Introduction to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime
- Module 3: Substantive provisions
- Module 4: Electronic evidence and the Budapest Convention procedural provisions
- Module 5: International cooperation provisions
- Module 6: Cybercrime in practice and Human Rights
- Module 7: The Second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention
The course can be accessed by visiting the Council of Europe HELP online platform at http://help.elearning.ext.coe.int/
The HELP course on Cybercrime and Electronic Evidence is available in English and soon will betranslated into additional languages and it can be launched in tutored format in collaboration with interested national institutions.
Council of Europe: HELP online platform
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