Octopus Project Activities

Retour Network of national correspondents of Police authorities launched in Strasbourg

A network of national correspondents of Police authorities was launched during the conference “Policing in the digital age: how new technologies can help better policing our modern societies”, organised in Strasbourg between 28-29 June 2022 by the Council of Europe Unit for Cooperation in Police and Deprivation of Liberty with support provided by the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe (C-PROC) within the Octopus Project. The event aimed at raising awareness among the Police representatives from the 46 Member States of the Council of Europe on the impact of digitalisation on criminality and how the technologies can benefit to the Police work. The meeting was attended by senior representatives of the Ministries of Interior and directors of the national Police forces of Council of Europe’s member States.

The launching of the network came as a result of the Committee of Ministers having approved in May 2022 the initiative with the aim to strengthen technical co-operation between member States’ Police forces and the Council of Europe.

The new network will promote:

better knowledge of police forces, their organisation, their modus operandi and their internal and external supervisory bodies;
the pooling of experience in the areas of human rights, democracy and the rule of law;
knowledge sharing on combating various forms of crime (such as organised crime, terrorism, human trafficking, online child sexual exploitation, hate speech and racism, cybercrime, domestic violence and violence against women);
the implementation of existing Police standards;
participation, where appropriate, in the preparation of instruments for increased cooperation, taking advantage of the expertise and views of Police representative.

The network will also be tasked with preparing and disseminating comparative studies on aspects of Policing in the light of the challenges of the 21^st century (such as artificial intelligence, cybercrime, digital investigating technologies and managing public assemblies with due regard for human rights).

International Police organisations, including Europol, INTERPOL, CEPOL and organisations bringing together Police trade unions at European level, will also be invited to contribute to the work of the network. Every year, an annual conference will be organised on different topics of interest for Police.

The topics of cybercrime and electronic evidence as transversal issues were referenced on several occasions, and the work of the Council of Europe on promoting an international legal framework (the Convention on Cybercrime and its Additional Protocols) was acknowledged as making a difference at global level. A presentation on the challenges for Police in accessing e-evidence was made on behalf of the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe by its Head of Operations, outlining solutions offered through the Convention on Cybercrime, the Second Additional Protocol and capacity building programmes implemented by C-PROC.

Council of Europe: Unit for Cooperation in Police and Deprivation of Liberty