First published: 30th June 2007
Answering a question by Hon. Sin Chung Kai, Legislative Councillor for the IT Functional Constituency, the Hong Kong Government revealed its measures to combat technology crime.
The Secretary for Security, Mr Ambrose S K Lee provided a written answer. Rising technology crime is believed to be directly related to the increasing popularity of internet usage and online games. About half the technology crimes handled by the Police involve inadequate security awareness of online game players.
However, detection rates of technology crimes for the past three years have been low, 20% or less, compared with about 44% overall. The difficulties encountered include the often international nature of technology crimes; and the ease of identity concealment on the internet.
The Police have over 100 officers to investigate technology crime, with 44 officers in the Technology Crime Division of the Commercial Crime Bureau and 12 officers in each of the Technology Crime Units at the five land Regions. The Police have also established the "Technology Crime Initial Response Cadre", which is made up of 120 Cadre Members. Apart from performing their daily duties, these Cadre Members are on stand-by round-the-clock, providing support to frontline investigators as necessary.
The Police have conducted various computer forensics training courses for their own officers, and officers from other law enforcement departments. Since 2005, the Police have conducted a "Computer Forensics Certification Course" twice, and 39 officers passed the course. This year, 22 officers took the new "Application Computer Forensics Course" further enhance their professional capabilities. An introductory computer forensics course has also been started.
The Police have also made efforts to educate the public about computer crime, joining forces with educational institutions, the Education and Manpower Bureau, Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team. Further efforts include highlighting the issues on the "Police Report" television programme and reaching out to the youth by introducing "Junior Police Call Information Technology Security Ambassadors".
Copyright-related cyber crimes are closely monitored by the Customs and Excise Department (C&ED). The CE&D has collaborated with the academic sector in developing a monitoring software to further enhance the efficiency of enforcement actions.
Most cases handled by the CE&D involved the selling of copyright-infringing goods on auction sites. No follow-up actions could be taken in most cases because of inaccurate or insufficient details; the items had already been deleted from the internet; or the seized goods were not counterfeits.
The CE&D have fourteen officials trained in cyber crime investigation, divided into two Anti-Internet Piracy Teams (AIPTs).