No escape from cybercops

2003-09-30 21:23

Benidorm, Spain - Major advances in communications are allowing global police agency Interpol to improve the security and efficiency of data transmissions between national forces to hunt down criminals, the organisation said here on Tuesday.

Using a series of interlinked computer servers which deploy state of the art encryption techniques, Interpol says forces can today take advantage of the Internet to swap information on crimes wherever they are committed, giving the perpetrators "nowhere to hide".

The vast communications network dealing with the transfer of millions of messages a day, dubbed I-24/7, came on stream in January when Canada put into place the requisite technology, since when 77 other countries have joined the fray.

Unveiling the I-24/7 system at Interpol's 72nd General Assembly in Benidorm, project co-directors Stuart Cameron-Willer and Stan Morris told reporters that all of the organisation's 181 member states are due to be running the technology from June 2004.

"The challenge is to connect 181 countries in total by next year," said Briton Cameron-Waller.

"The two main challenges remaining are the bulk of Africa and Central America and the Caribbean. We're working very closely with chiefs of police of those regions to get them connected as quickly as possible," Cameron-Waller said.

For Morris, the beauty of the system whose hub is at Interpol's headquarters at Lyon, France, is that it provides a single deep well of information on which each member country can draw to piece together identikits of criminals and their worldwide activities.

Collaboration

"Police business is about communication and collaboration," said Morris, who stressed that the "distance, time and language elements" which were the hallmark of international crime required a focused, co-ordinated and international police response.

He explained that a policeman called to investigate what might appear to be a routine motoring offence needed readily available back-up resources "to understand if this is a speeder or a terrorist."

Immediate online access to secure files would aid such an investigation, according to Morris, as the information would "give for the first time information on a wanted individual in every connected country in a matter of seconds."

Morris said Interpol had recognised the flexibility derived from using Internet protocols, allowing police to use the technology of "essentially unbreakable codes", giving 'cybercops' a powerful weapon to help track down miscreants.

"Suddenly there are no out-of-the-way places any more. There are no corners of the Earth that are out-of-the-way any more."

Morris acknowledged the existence of corruption in some police forces - but insisted that individual access passwords would likely show up abuses of the system and the information stored on file.

- AFP