Resource Materials on Technology-enabled Crime

In December 2005, the Australian Institute of Criminology was commissioned by the Australian High Tech Crime Centre to conduct research into issues relating to key criminal justice issues concerning technology-enabled crime in the context of an evolving international and domestic legal and law enforcement framework. As part of this research, the present resource materials were prepared to provide a general overview of information on cybercrime to assist prosecutors and members of the judiciary who may be faced with proceedings involving computer related offences. While work on computer related crime is ongoing and is a relatively new field, this compendium aims to present prosecutors with common terms, concepts, relevant legislation, and current debates in the academic literature affecting technology-enabled crime cases. In the short term, computer forensic processes and practice will continue to evolve, driven by new technologies and software, and the intent nationally and internationally to standardise evidentiary processes and the science behind practice. Such dynamism will continue to generate subsequent challenges for practitioners and the judiciary, and compound the risk that research results will become rapidly outdated. The work presented in this report, however, provides a useful summary, offering a solid basis on which to build greater understanding of e-crime cases and prosecutions that will serve to strengthen future work and policy debate in this field.