Germany 
States
and corporations from Europe and beyond gather to discuss "police
in social networks", "ePolice" and "equipment
and armament"
14.02.13
Next week the 16th European Police
Congress will be held in Berlin, where representatives of internal
security authorities and corporations from Europe and beyond
will gather for a programme of events focused largely on policing
the internet, where the world of "digital romantics",
"moral hackers" and "cyber kiddies" has "turned
into operative and organised crime," according to the event's
organisers. [1]
"The internet has
created a second universe of binds and relationships," says
the website of the Congress. "In here, law enforcement meets
its own borders: local responsibilities cannot cope with the
boundless space. Therefore police and other law enforcement authorities
have to adopt into the digital world. But even this adoption
meets its borders."
The Congress is therefore
aiming to break down some of the borders between law enforcement
agencies and companies, seeking to "strengthen the dialogue
between the authorities and enable the participants to establish
new contacts to colleagues all over the world."
Alongside discussions
on the internet and social media, some more traditional police
interests will be catered for - the brochure for the event notes
the inclusion of "equipment and armament". Photos from
last year's event show guns, gas masks and drones on display
to attendees. [2]
The event regularly attracts
the attention of protestors, who this year will gather to express
their opposition an event they say is concerned with "the
complete penetration of private life with state surveillance
mania." [3] Previous demonstrations against the event have
seen confrontations break out between police and protesters.
Last year's conference
on the topic of "Networked Security: Terrorism" attracted
around 1,500 participants from 24 countries. Although the majority
of those attending were from Germany, 28% came from other EU
states and 11% came from non-EU states. They included representatives
of the European Gendarmerie Force, a parliamentary organisation
operated by nine countries include France, Italy, the Netherlands
and Spain. [4]
At this year's Congress
Troels Oerting, the head of Europol's recently-launched European
Cybercrime Centre (EC3) will give a presentation on "criminal
prosecution in the internet with a focus on social networks."
Other events include a lecture on "activities of European
police forces in social networks" and a "high-level
debate" amongst high-ranking German police officers, a former
director of Europol and a representative of the UK policing college
on "police and social networks."
A series of panels will
examine a number of issues including "ePolice: prevention
and prosecution in social networks", "organised crime
in the internet", digital forensics" and "propaganda
and recruiting in the field of terrorism and extremism in the
internet".
The interest of police
forces in online activity is reflected in a 2012 report from
Europol. "Besides the continuing threat of financially motivated
cybercrime, 2011 has clearly been the year of 'hacktivism',"
said the agency, noting that it was working on an assessment
of "the nature and the impact of 'Anonymous' and related
attacks in Europe", as well as researching Stuxnet, Lulzsec,
denial of service attacks and "the evolution of the 'Bitcoin'
virtual payment system and criminal misuse of the 'TOR' anonymising
network." [5]
The potential uses by
the authorities of information available from the internet was
made clear earlier this week in a report from The Guardian. The
newspaper revealed that the multinational arms company Raytheon
has been developing "software capable of tracking people's
movement and predicting future behaviour by mining data from
social networking websites." The project has apparently
"attracted interest from intelligence and national security
agencies, at the same time prompting civil liberties and online
privacy concerns." [6]
The European Police Congress
welcomes the participation of other "internal security"
authorities aside from the police. Last year Gil Arias, the Deputy
Executive Director of Frontex, gave a presentation outlining
the border agency's "latest developments, competences and
possibilities." [7]
The event will also see
marketing exhibitions by some of the biggest names in the security,
defence and computing industries, including Cassidian, CapGemini,
IBM, Oracle, Panasonic, Siemens and Taser, who will be there
to demonstrate "the latest developments in technologies
for the professional use in the security sector." [8]
Sources
[1] European Police
Congress, Topics
2013
[2] 16th European Police Congress, Information
for participant; Theo Schneider, 15th
European Police Congress begins in Berlin, 14 February
2012
[3] European
Police Congress in Berlin
[4] Tim Schumacher, “The
law will bring peace” - a view on the European Gendarmerie
Force (EGF), Statewatch Journal, vol 20 no 3/4, July-December
2010
[5] Europol, Europol
Review 2011, p.41
[6] Ryan Gallagher, Software
that tracks people on social media created by defence firm,
The Guardian, 10 February 2013
[7] Gil Arias, FRONTEX:
Latest developments, competences & possibilities,
February 2012
[8] European Police Congress, About
the Conference