ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the issue of policing cyber-crimes. There are two kinds of policing for any kinds of crimes: one is moral policing. This is not generally supported by the legal machinery. The types of criminal activities that are covered by the moral police groups are generally related to social media activities of ordinary individuals, especially women and children. These may include uploading certain content on the social media websites, which may necessarily include still and audio-visual content. The second kind of policing is legal, and the police officers engaged by the State are responsible for controlling moral police groups as well. This chapter deals with the policing system of cyber-crimes that is supported by the law and justice machinery. Policing cyber-crimes is extremely challenging. It requires legal recognition of the offences and training of the police officers and the prosecutors to trace out and handle the digital evidence, ensure the proper infrastructure to preserve the evidence for prosecution purposes, and, above all, an awareness among ordinary individuals regarding cyber-crimes and proper reporting of such to the authorities. The problem of vanishing victims presents another big challenge for policing cyber-crimes. In the process of the administration of justice, States are increasingly including systems of electronic governance. In this, a third party may be involved for maintenance of the cyber infrastructure, auditing of the cybersecurity standards, etc. This third party may also have access to confidential court data. It becomes extremely challenging for the criminal justice machinery when these third parties leak such confidential data for illegal profit gain. Another significant challenge for policing cyber-crimes is jurisdictional issues. Even though the European Union Convention on Cybercrime, 2001 emphasised mutual legal assistance between State parties, in practice this may be extremely challenging. The absence of bilateral treaties between countries makes it impossible for police officers to gather evidence and arrest the offenders who may be taking shelter in different countries. This chapter provides a detailed discussion of these issues.
