Interpol warns that policing must adapt to 21st century crime

Interpol President Khoo Boon Hui has warned that the international policing body has to continue to grow and adapt to meet modern crime challenges.

“To remain effective and relevant, Interpol must clearly understand the current global policing challenges, anticipate emerging security threats and develop innovative crime approaches to counter such threats,” he said.

He was speaking at a three-day conference in France for member countries which focused on the need for policing to continually adapt its resources and expertise to better address 21st century crime and countries’ evolving security requirements.

Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said the establishment of the Interpol Global Complex in Singapore by 2014 will open the way towards the Interpol of tomorrow – “an Interpol able to address cybercrime and to satisfy the demand of our member countries for capacity building and training of police to meet the crime challenges of the 21st century”.

“Innovation is making it possible for people to have greater access to one another, for good and for bad. To operate effectively in this landscape, Interpol must make research and innovation – particularly fighting digital crime and providing digital security – one of its best allies. Innovation and digital security must become the cornerstone of Interpol’s future,” he said.

Interpol’s secretary general has also called for a globally verifiable electronic identity card system to enhance cross-border security and to help governments better regulate and protect migrant workers.

Speaking at an international forum on citizen ID projects, e-passports and border control management at the fourth annual EMEA ID World summit, Mr Noble said: “At a time when global migration is reaching record levels, there is a need for governments to put in place systems at the national level that would permit the identity of migrants and their documents to be verified internationally via Iinterpol.

“The vast majority of migrants are law-abiding citizens who would like to have their identities verified in more than one country using the same identity document. If countries were to issue work and residence permits in an e-ID format that satisfied common standards internationally, then both the migrant workers and the countries themselves would benefit because efficiencies would improve, security at the national and global level would improve and corruption would be reduced.”

The forum heard that such a card required developing a mechanism whereby the biometric identity features of migrants, such as fingerprints and DNA, would be checked systematically against global databases.