Cybercrime awareness and skills for South African law enforcement​ – Providing specialist cybercrime investigation skills 

Summary

This project is part of the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) commitment to build national cyber security capacity and resilience to cybersecurity threats in five middle-income countries. The UK Government’s Digital Access Programme provides support through: Government-to-Government technical assistance; cyber hygiene training; public awareness-raising; and research. It aims to reduce the impact of cyber harms on their governments, economies and citizens – particularly amongst groups vulnerable to online exploitation. This specific project was implemented in partnership with VizStrat and Cysiam.

Details

Aim

• To improve understanding of what cybercrime is and how best to respond, and how to escalate and report cybercrime.
• To ensure officers were more sensitive to reports of gender-based online violence.

Context

As part of the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme, the context is around providing safe, secure and affordable digital access for underserved populations, reducing poverty and increasing economic prosperity as a result. In South Africa, there was an identified and significant shortage of specialist cybercrime investigation skills and digital forensic capabilities amongst the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI). The South African Police Force (SAPS) officers in general had a low level of awareness of cyber crime.

Outcomes

• Increased capability and capacity with the SAPS with more officers able to deliver in these areas.
• Over 2,300 police officers trained and reported an increase in their knowledge across all relevant areas.

Outputs

• A policy and framework for undertaking digital forensics and open source intelligence training.
• Basic and specialist training activities and manuals, covering the detection, prevention and investigation of cybercrimes.
• Standard Operating Procedures for using the powers in the Cybercrimes Act, guided by a public consultation exercise.

Activities

Activities include training specialist law enforcement officers in Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT); training SAPS/DPCI officers in basic awareness on the Cybercrimes Act and specialist knowledge areas, incl. Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Digital Forensics (DF); the development of Training Policy and Training Frameworks for OSINT and UID; identification of learning needs for DPCI with a proposed training roadmap; identification of DPCI skills and development of a people strategic plan; development of Standard Operating Procedures in compliance with Section 26 of the Cybercrimes Act, No. 19 of 2020. Public consultation.