Two similar IT crime meetings were held successfully in Australia in 1997 and in India last year. This year a total of 27 delegates from 11 countries/jurisdictions and Interpol, including Director of the Information Security Supervision Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security Li Zhao, attended the meeting.

Following the opening of the meeting by Assistant Commissioner Crime Peter Yam Tat-wing, the delegates discussed a wide range of topics including the identification of common problems in tackling IT crime and the solving of the problems by modern investigation and forensic examination techniques, training, as well as intelligence gathering and sharing. They all agreed that international liaison and cooperation were essential to the fight against IT crime.

A number of countries including Australia, China, India, Korea and Singapore presented their country reports at the meeting. The delegates also reviewed three project reports on intelligence, computer forensic examination and training. Senior Superintendent Albert Ng Kam-wing of the Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB)'s Technology Crime Division gave a presentation on the progress made in Hong Kong regarding computer crime.

Speaking to the press after the meeting, CCB Chief Superintendent Lo Yik-kee said that the 33 per cent drop in IT crime in Hong Kong in the first 10 months of this year compared with the same period last year showed that the Force was capable of cracking down on IT criminals.

"However, there is no room for complacency as the criminals were becoming more skilful and were tended to be driven more by financial motives," he said.

CSP Lo also noted that the workload for forensic examination of computers was increasing.

In the first 10 months of this year, the number of forensic examination cases increased by 33 per cent compared with the whole year of 2000. During the same period, the amount of data storage (measured in GigaBytes) to be examined and the number of computers received from all Formations for examination and possible recovery of digital evidence also increased by 254 per cent and 56 per cent respectively.