By Arshia Jain
Published On: February 27, 2022 at 10:00 IST
Introduction
With 190 member nations throughout the world, INTERPOL is the world’s biggest international police organization.
Its mission is to enable police forces all around the world to collaborate and improve global security.
Staff at INTERPOL’s headquarters in Lyon, France, the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore, seven Regional Bureaus in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and Special Representatives Offices at the United Nations in New York, the European Union in Brussels, and soon at the African Union in Addis Ababa carry out the organization’s daily work.
More than 100 countries are represented within INTERPOL’s varied workforce.
The Organization aims to assist police forces around the world in meeting the growing challenges of transnational crime in the twenty-first century by providing a high-tech infrastructure of technical and operational support as well as an international platform for the exchange of information on best practices in law enforcement.
INTERPOL’s contribution to international security is focused on facilitating international police collaboration because of its worldwide location. Because member nations demands are inherently extremely different and steadily growing more complex due to the increasingly international nature of the crime, this activity can take a variety of forms.
International criminal databases, a secure police communication system, capacity building and training programs for a range of forms of crime, and operational assistance for international criminal investigations are among the key services that INTERPOL provides to its member nations.
NCB: INTERPOL heart
Every INTERPOL function is coordinated by the National Central Bureau (NCB), which is the focal point for each state.
This also connects national law enforcement agencies in the United States to other nations and the INTERPOL General Secretariat via a secure global police communications network.
NCBs obtain all necessary data from other NCBs to aid in the investigation of crime or criminals in their state, and they also exchange criminal data and information with one another.
The NCBs are housed in a unit extremely close to the national police chief, and the majority of them can issue alerts to law enforcement in their states.
For example, INTERPOL “Red Notices” often notify police in all states of all wanted suspects, and NCBs collaborate on cross-border investigations, operations, and arrests at the same time. This ensures that reliable data is available at the proper moment for police to see a pattern, prevent a crime, or apprehend an offender.
Initiative INTERPOL 2020
The transition to future-oriented thinking at INTERPOL is going place as part of INTERPOL 2020, an organization-wide transitional and strategic realignment process that was officially accepted by member nations in November 2015 at the 84th INTERPOL General Assembly in Kigali, Rwanda.
The INTERPOL 2020 strategy lays forth a plan for the organization to realign its operations and goals with the rising requirements indicated by its members.
The formation of consultative working groups in collaboration with representatives from member nations is one element of this strategy.
Through the working group focusing on technology and innovation, one of the main themes these working groups will address is how INTERPOL can develop cutting-edge technologies and services to strengthen international police collaboration.
In Kigali, INTERPOL member countries also endorsed a General Assembly resolution expressing support for future INTERPOL resource investments in law enforcement research projects on topics such as future security threats, cybersecurity, and law enforcement adaptation to emerging technologies.
In addition, a panel on innovation and the future of police were added to the agenda of the 2015 General Assembly.
The passage of these resolutions, the inclusion of a future-oriented panel on the agenda, and the subsequent creation of an international law enforcement working group on technology and innovation exemplify the degree to which INTERPOL and its member countries will prioritize research and innovation in the coming years, given that the INTERPOL General Assembly is the Organization’s supreme governing body.
Environmental Scanning and Strategic Analysis of Emerging Threats
INTERPOL has made measures to use its worldwide law enforcement network to identify new criminal risks, which is a key responsibility for the organization.
INTERPOL started holding high-level environmental scanning seminars in December 2015 to explore emerging concerns on a global scale.
The overall goal of these environmental scanning exercises is to establish INTERPOL as an expert-level platform for the exchange of views on important change drivers.
Interpol has formed a new analytical unit dedicated to the creation of strategic analysis products that will give extensive predictions and analytical information on existing and upcoming crime risks and trends to internal decision-makers and external law enforcement stakeholders.
Producing emerging threat reports, creating relationships among global stakeholders, and developing a new methodology are among the efforts planned for this new entity. These research items might be focused on a single criminal phenomenon, a trend in a certain geographic location, or both.
Objective of INTERPOL
INTERPOL’s objective to support the global law enforcement community with world-class, specialized training courses cannot be met without the guidance of member countries’ training specialists.
As a result, the Organization has sought such guidance on several occasions through the formation of specialized working groups on law enforcement capacity building and training research.
In 2009, the INTERPOL Group of Experts on Police Training (IGEPT) was established as the Organization’s first dedicated working group for the exchange of best practices in the fields of police training and research.
The IGEPT assisted INTERPOL in the successful completion of several initiatives, including the creation of a research publication portal within the INTERPOL Global Learning Center (IGLC) online e-learning platform, the publication of five issues of an international police training e-journal, and the successful organization of a police training conference in December 2010 in partnership with the US Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC).
The INTERPOL/FLETC Technology and Research Exercise brought together over 80 managers and experts in police training to discuss the latest research findings on human performance in high-stress situations commonly encountered by law enforcement officers, the use of simulations for law enforcement training, the efficacy of e-learning and multimedia in police training, and other training-related topics.
INTERPOL plans to reformulate the IGEPT into a permanent advisory body on law enforcement capacity development and training research, even though its functions have been suspended.
During the INTERPOL Police Training Symposium in June 2016, this suggestion will most likely be expanded upon.
Research Activities
At INTERPOL, a variety of specialist units and personnel work on research projects.
Emerging dangers in cyberspace approach for identifying fraudulent travel papers, supply chain security, the illicit trade in electronic waste and natural resources, and data protection issues are all covered by these efforts.
Because INTERPOL training programs may be customized to account for the new knowledge generated from the study, the outcomes of these efforts are crucial for the organization.
Findings from research may be used to develop new training courses and initiatives, as well as new distance learning content for the worldwide law enforcement community.
Fight against Illicit Electronic Waste Trade
INTERPOL acted as a coordinator for a team working on a European Union-funded research project that looked at the patterns of illegal trading in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), often known as e-waste.
Because WEEE typically contains hazardous components or materials, inappropriate disposal or treatment of such trash can degrade the environment and hurt public health.
The Countering WEEE Illegal Trade (CWIT) project finished in August 2015, with a summary study revealing that about 4.65 million tonnes of e-waste are Wrongly mismanaged or illegally transferred inside Europe itself.
Approximately 10% of the total amount of e-waste is illegally shipped to nations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Furthermore, European waste processors who follow regulations lose between EUR 800 million and EUR 1.7 billion each year due to the theft of valuable metals and components from waste electronics.
The CWIT summary report also included a list of recommendations for addressing the legislative and operational flaws that make this type of crime possible.
Data Protection and Privacy Legal Research
Criminals must innovate, and law enforcement must as well. On the technological front, police must make an effort to keep up with criminal gangs.
This, however, need adequate laws. Emerging police technologies should be considered within an appropriate legal framework based on the principles of the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights to ensure that they are implemented lawfully.
INTERPOL is taking part in several European Union-funded research activities addressing the use of new technologies and data protection to make the process of adopting novel tools and technology by law enforcement easier.
These efforts aim to improve security while limiting potential violations of basic rights, such as the right to privacy, and to promote conversation and cooperation between law enforcement, academics, the commercial sector, and civil society.
The projects specifically address the development of surveillance technologies and legislators’ parallel efforts to quickly develop adequate legal frameworks (Smart Project), the legal foundations for the monitoring and tracking of CCTV systems, social networking sites, and financial movements (Respect Project), and the development of voice recognition and speaker identification systems that account for privacy and data protection laws (Speaker Identification Integrate).
Also the creation of a roadmap for the use of new technologies in the collection, exchange, and use of evidence (Evidence Project); the evolution and impact of cybercrime from economic and legal perspectives (E-CRIME Project); and the economic, social, legal, and ethical facets of recent developments on the Internet in an increasingly digital society, with an emphasis on governance, human rights, and int (MAPPING Project).
Silver Warning
INTERPOL member countries also endorsed a resolution calling for the development of a new instrument devoted to the tracing and recovery of criminal assets during the 2015 General Assembly.
This tool will expand the utility and scope of the organization’s well-known color-coded international notices system once it is launched.
Member nations were also encouraged to engage in and assist the pilot period of this new tool by sharing their views, recommendations, and problems with INTERPOL during the development and implementation of the new notice.
This highlights INTERPOL’s commitment to improving and enhancing its existing capabilities to better fulfill the needs of member countries.
Project of the Baseline
The adoption of a resolution calling for the implementation of the Baseline Project by INTERPOL member countries at the General Assembly in 2015 was a significant step toward curbing the growth of online child sexual exploitation.
This initiative aims to enable public and private entities to identify, report, and remove child abuse materials (CAM) from their platforms and networks, thereby contributing to the prevention of child abuse.
Private entities can more easily determine the extent to which their computer networks are used to disseminate abuse materials using the ‘Baseline list’, which the system uses to identify CAM by comparing the file signatures of uploaded images and videos to the data contained in INTERPOL’s International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) database.
Further inquiry into the sources of CAM files inside a network can aid investigations into child exploitation and abuse victim rescue.
As a result, INTERPOL now has a tool to assist private businesses in ensuring that their computer networks do not store or spread CAM internally or on the Internet, assisting in the organization’s efforts to combat child sexual exploitation in the cybersphere.
Conclusion
Interpol’s future research and innovation plans are based on the assumption that law enforcement agencies around the world face similar transnational crime challenges.
INTERPOL’s effectiveness is entirely dependent on member countries’ willingness to share data, expertise, and personnel with the organization.
Interpol takes pleasure in facilitating the worldwide exchange of expert-level law enforcement expertise to foster collaborative learning and discovery.
Edited by: Tanvi Mahajan, Publisher, Law Insider
References
- INTERPOL
- Legal documents
- Interpol International Organization
- Interpol summary
- INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data
- INTERPOL, know everything
- What is INTERPOL and its functions?