Tackling EU Wildlife Cybercrime How technology can help

The study presents a general assessment of technological solutions, such as software, that can help with monitoring and detecting suspicious wildlife trade activities online without resorting to time-consuming, labour-intensive manual data collection. It concludes that the major challenge in adopting such approaches is not the development of new tools but in the refinement of existing ones and the gathering of critical datasets to achieve scalable, reliable, systematic and repeatable ways to detect wildlife cybercrime automatically.

The latest technology has the potential to be a game-changer in countering online wildlife trafficking, but it will necessitate a high degree of collaboration and coordination between relevant stakeholders, including police, customs, academia, NGOs, and the giant tech-companies

Florian Debève, Project Officer for the EU Wildlife Cybercrime Project and author of the report.

“Online trafficking of wildlife threatens thousands of species and risks spreading zoonotic diseases, which can have devastating impacts on our society,” said Emilie Van der Henst, Manager of the EU Wildlife Cybercrime Project and an author of the report.

“Everyone, from individuals to governments to the private sector can help curtail online trafficking by ensuring online posts are legal and that any illegal activity is reported”.

Recommendations to authorities, online platforms and wildlife consumers
A set of recommendations emanate from both reports, among which the need for policy makers to explore legislative improvements on the conditions under which protected wildlife can be sold, advertised and purchased online; the need for enforcement authorities in the EU member states to be provided with the adequate capacity (human resources, tools and training) to fight wildlife cybercrime effectively; the need for online platforms to adopt policies to actively combat the use of their platforms to sell illegal wildlife; and finally the need for wildlife consumers to stop purchasing illegal wildlife.

The two reports are published under the banner of the EU Wildlife Cybercrime Project, an EU-funded initiative aimed at disrupting and deterring criminal networks trafficking wildlife in, or via, the EU using the internet and parcel delivery services. The project is coordinated by WWF and implemented in partnership with IFAW, INTERPOL, Belgian Customs and TRAFFIC (through in-kind support).