AFP reaffirmed Support

The Criminal Investigations Department’s (CID) Cyber Crime Unit has been assured of the Australian Federal Police continued support by Australia’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs and Critical Technology H.E. Brendan Dowling during his official visit yesterday.

Ambassador Dowling leads Australia’s international engagement on cyber affairs and critical technology issues, while delivering cyber capacity building, crisis response and resilience across the Pacific region.

Following a brief overview of the Cybercrime Unit established in 2007 and the Digital Forensic Lab opened in 2022 with the support of the AFP, Ambassador Dowling said online safety and crime is increasingly becoming problematic as the region moves towards digitization.

“Fiji and Australian face similar challenges, as our socieities and economies are more connected online, as we spend more of our social time online, as more businesses are digitally connected that brings a huge amount of benefits and prosperity we all enjoy and the connectivity that we are able to foster on line. But at the same time, criminals are taking advantage of our online connectivity activities, in ways that are disturbing in ways that we are often behind as Governments in addressing”.

Ambassador Dowling went on to say, “We can see that many criminals are taking advantage of online tools and digital tools to do the crimes that they may have previously done off-line, like drug trafficking, exploitation of children and human trafficking, all using online tools and connectivity to perpertrate their crime”.

With ongoing support from AFP liaison officers based in Suva and the AFP led Cyber Safety Pasifika programme a key priority under the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police chaired by the AFP Commissioner, Ambassador Dowling said collaboration would be key to tackling cyber crimes.

“There is so much innovation by cyber criminals, using sophisticated tools, sophisticated software collaborating across borders and working together. The only way that we are going to combat the surge of cybercrime is also by working together, and by also adopting some of those sophisticated tools to monitor what’s happening and ideally lead to prosecutions and hold people accountable for these activities”.

Ambassador Dowling commended the proactive efforts of the cyber crime team in the conduct of community awareness programs throughout Fiji.

The Director CID Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Loraini Seru thanked Ambassador Dowling for Australia’s support through the AFP.

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