The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) recently announced the use of metaverse for law enforcement at the 90th Interpol General Assembly in New Delhi on October 19.
Interpol launched what it calls the first-ever metaverse designed for law enforcement globally and is said to be fully operational now. Following the Ajman Police’s announcement to provide its services to customers through metaverse technology dated October 16. Recently, many big names have supported the adoption of metaverse like Standard Chartered, along with nations like South Korea, UAE, Spain, etc. actively advocating for it.
The organization further highlighted that its adoption of the metaverse is also driven by the increasing leverage of technology by criminals for illicit purposes amidst the consistent increase in people’s adoption of the technology. As the World Economic Forum warned, criminals have already started exploiting the metaverse and mentioned that various crimes like social engineering scams, violent extremism, and misinformation could be significant challenges.
Interpol’s metaverse will allow registered users to visit the platform and take a round through a virtual replica of the organization’s headquarter, which is situated in Lyon, France, and participate in forensic investigation courses along with a few other features.
Interpol also mentioned that with the increasing participation of Metaverse users, the possibility of various crimes being done via it would also expand, like those against children, data theft, money laundering, financial fraud, counterfeiting, ransomware, phishing, sexual assault, and harassment. It also discussed the example of South Korea, where a man has been sentenced to punishment for harassing children in the metaverse while mentioning the punishment for crimes in the metaverse.
Jurgen Stock, Secretary General of Interpol, also discussed in detail the organization’s plan to develop a separate department to chase down crypto crimes while highlighting the fact that many law enforcement agencies are not well-equipped to handle the crimes associated with the sector.
Stock’s view was also supported by Praveen Sinha, special director of India’s Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI). He mentioned how it has become difficult to monitor cyber crimes lately due to the global scale involvement and coordination being the most significant requirement there. Sinha added that international cooperation, coordination, trust, and real-time sharing would help tackle the increasing cybercrimes.
The organization’s metaverse is also expected to provide a well-structured and efficient way for its offices around the globe to facilitate communication and coordination, training for new recruits, etc.