Octopus Project

Summary

The Octopus Project is a Council of Europe project based on voluntary contributions from States Parties and Observers to the Convention on Cybercrime and other public and private sector organisations, aiming to support the implementation of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, its Protocols and related standards, as well as to address additional challenges that come about throughout the years.

Details

Aim

The Council or Europe’s Octopus Project seeks to support the implementation of the Budapest Convention and its additional Protocols, contribute to enhanced international cooperation, stronger criminal justice responses among signatories to the Convention, and ultimately contribute to progress and strengthened capabilities to deal with cybercrime and electronic evidence.

Outcomes

Results are expected in the following areas:

• Assistance of the criminal justice authorities from the countries willing to implement the Budapest Convention, its First Protocol on Xenophobia and Racism, its future Second Protocol on enhanced international cooperation and access to evidence in the cloud, as well as related standards;
• Support to the Cybercrime Convention Committee (T-CY);
• Organisation of the Octopus conferences on cooperation against cybercrime;
• Development of online tools for the delivery of capacity building activities on cybercrime and electronic evidence.

Outputs

In order to achieve these results funding will go towards the following four components of the project:

• Assist countries in the implementation of the Convention and 1^st Additional Protocol on Xenophobia and Racism, and its 2^nd Additional Protocol, including in terms of data protection and other safeguards through support to reforms of legislation, training and other capacity building measures.
• Provide support to the Cybercrime Convention Committee (T-CY) representing the Parties to the Budapest Convention and is the primary body overseeing its implementation. The support will be in the form of preparing guidance notes, assessing implementation of the Convention by the Parties, and identifying solutions to new challenges. In June 2013, the T-CY decided that the Committee should be co-funded by voluntary contributions to projects. The Octopus Project will also support the participation in the United Nations treaty process by Parties and States that have signed or been invited to accede to the Budapest Convention, if requested.
• Organisation of Octopus Conferences. The Octopus Conference is the flagship event of the CoE on cybercrime since 2004. It involves multiple public and private sector stakeholders from around the world and serves as a laboratory of ideas for the criminal justice response to cybercrime, permits sharing of experience and includes capacity building workshops. At the 2019 Octopus Conference, some 450 experts from more than 115 countries participated.
• Implementation of online resources and tools for the online delivery of capacity building activities on cybercrime and electronic evidence. The Cybercrime Programme Office (C-PROC) is responsible for all capacity building activities of the Recipient on cybercrime, and will also be implementing the new Octopus Project. C-PROC responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by offering a portal on “Cybercrime and COVID-19” launching a series of webinars, and by beginning to reform the Octopus Community on cybercrime. Under the new Octopus Project, these resources will be further improved and maintained but also additional tools will be developed to facilitate the virtual sharing of experience and the delivery of training activities.