Crime has fundamentally changed, and the pace of that change is increasing rapidly. It will not slow down. We need to work differently to keep up.
That change affects all of us - but particularly our more vulnerable citizens and, most of all, our children and young people. Across all five countries, we are seeing more and more young people featuring in our investigations, both as victims and most alarmingly as perpetrators. We are deeply concerned about increasingly predatory behaviour against vulnerable people.
This is the reality we face across many crime types including sexual and sadistic exploitation of children, cyber-crime, drug trafficking, fraud, violent extremism and terrorism. In some of our countries we have even seen children and young people being tricked or paid to commit violent crimes on behalf of serious criminals or hostile states. We call this Crime as a Service, or Violence as a Service.
Technology has always accelerated changes in the criminal landscape, but it is now driving it. Parts of the online environment are currently not safe for children. Algorithms feed harmful content to children, radicalising and normalising abhorrent views in criminal echo chambers. Social media enables criminals to contact thousands of potential victims using nothing more sophisticated than a smart phone. Criminals are now exploiting A.I. to rapidly accelerate this harm.
Reversing these trends requires closer collaboration, not just between law enforcement agencies, but crucially, with the tech sector and governments. We all need to unite and act to reduce the harm associated with children living their lives increasingly online. This urgent need has dominated our discussions this week and we are united in our desire to help create a safer environment for young people today and for future generations.
Together this week we have agreed to continue all the incredible work that our teams already do together. Our teams naturally come together to share their expertise and do joint operations. However this week we have focussed on the pressing need to do more to keep pace with the threat.
In relation to protecting young people we will:
- build capability to both use and combat A.I. in crimes against children
- tackle sadistic online predators who hunt victims online
- cooperate in tackling financially motivated sexual extortion against children, much of which emanates from West Africa
- work more intensively with our private sector partners, sharing more data to find more of these dangerous criminals.
We also discussed the rapidly expanding threat from scam/fraud compounds. These operate at a vast scale, stealing our citizens' hard earned savings with total disregard for the harm they cause. We will work together on these deeply damaging organised criminal enterprises.
Importantly, we have also agreed to build capability together, in particular in the areas of A.I. and other emerging technologies. These are the most pressing technological challenges of our age and we as leaders are determined to keep pace with the threat, and working together is one of the best ways in which we can do that.
And finally, creating safe environments is now beyond the ability of law enforcement alone - we need the continued help of the tech sector. We are pleased to have had a detailed discussion with some large tech companies this week about the great work we do together. We heard from our and their experts on some incredible creative initiatives that are underway. Our collective challenge is now how we scale this up to meet the increasing threat that we see. Fighting crime now needs to be a whole of society effort, and we need the help of the tech sector.
The threats we are facing are confronting, but as five nations we will ensure we use every capability and partnership to preserve our democratic way of life and protect our future - our youth.
