Collaborative online expertise

What is it?

  • Collaborative technology development to identify and investigate offenders.

Why is it important?

  • Good practice experience from multi-country programme delivery (online and offline) consistently reinforces the shared learning, improved efficiency and effectiveness, and quality outputs that can result from collaboration across organisations, industries and countries.
  • The Lanzarote and Budapest[1] Conventions mandate country cooperation when responding to CSEA online. This includes a shared legal basis for criminal cooperation when dealing with: victims and offenders based in different countries, individuals who are living in countries where they are not citizens, situations where extradition may be necessary and in other relevant criminal matters (Lanzarote Convention).
  • The industry actors that focus on eliminating CSEA online is relatively small but growing. Collaboration is key to achieving agreed targets: a lack of efficiency and effectiveness can have significant implications on individual and groups of children.

How can it be implemented?

  • Develop joint multi-country legislation, or national legislation based on international commitments and standards (see capabilities 2 and 3). This could include expanding the countries who have committed to the Lanzarote and Budapest conventions.
  • Identify one ‘model’ (based on existing practice and systems) to guide international, or regional, criminal justice collaboration architecture and practice. Adapt and update the model collaboratively based on practice, need and over time.
  • Define, agree and share case priority / urgency levels (based on harm or potential harm to a child), with practical examples, and assign appropriate follow up action, responses and responsibilities.
  • Complete and share detailed criminal justice stakeholder analysis which details the roles, responsibilities and contributions of individual actors or stages within the wider CSEA online industry and architecture.
  • Foster industry-wide support from all relevant stakeholders, including businesses, and engage their active participation in joint criminal justice policies, systems and practice. Reinforce the necessary combination of individual quality plus mutual complementarity to reach goals. 
  • Avoid intra-industry or intra-country competition and duplication of resources on the elimination of CSEA online. This could be achieved in part by creating open source tools and / or tools that are free at the point of use.
  • Develop and carry out joint training, research, risk monitoring and analysis, and evaluations of intervention programmes and other practical experiences.
  • Ensure shared terminology and / or develop aligned systems to record, store, manage and share victim and offenders’ data. Agree procedures through which personal data is shared on a need to know basis and in order to facilitate criminal proceedings.

Further resources:

WePROTECT, Commitments.

[1] The Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe