On 16 April, the Council of Europe HELP course on “Cybercrime and Electronic Evidence” was launched in the Kozyn Centre by the Council of Europe Project “HELP (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals) for Ukraine, including during wartime” in cooperation with the National School of Judges and the Prosecutor`s Training Center of Ukraine.

30 prosecutors and 22 judges from different regions are participating in this training course.

Cybercrime and other crimes involving electronic evidence affect the right to private life of hundreds of millions of individuals whose personal data are stolen; attack the dignity and the integrity of individuals; are a threat to the freedom of expression, public security but also democratic stability. An effective criminal justice response is needed in order to protect societies against cybercrime while also protecting individuals’ fundamental human rights.

The Council of Europe implements a number of initiatives to combat cybercrime. These efforts culminated in the adoption of the Convention on Cybercrime in November 2001, which entered into force on 1 July 2006.

The free online course "Cybercrime and Electronic Evidence" will provide tools for identifying and investigating cybercrime, as well as collecting, recording and evaluating electronic evidence for admissibility and sufficiency. Its purpose is also to ensure effective investigation in criminal proceedings and bring perpetrators to justice.

The course covers not only the fight against and prevention of cybercrime, but also the issue of electronic evidence in criminal proceedings.

The course will help to deepen the knowledge of practitioners to effectively apply the standards developed under the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime in their daily work.

The launch of the course was opened by Erlend Falch, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine, Olesia Otradnova, Director of the Prosecutor`s Training Center of Ukraine and Tamara Zakrevska, Deputy Head of the Training of Trainers (Teachers) Department of the National School of Judges of Ukraine.

The national tutors adapted the course to Ukrainian legislation and national practice.  The tutors of the course, who will accompany the group during 2 months, are Dmytro Krivtsov, judge of the Moskovsky District Court of Kharkiv; Inga Kalancha, Head of the Novoselytsia Department of the Chernivtsi District Prosecutor's Office of the Chernivtsi Region; and Arevik Abrahamyants, Deputy Head of the Analytical Department for Training Prosecutors of the Prosecutor's Training Center of Ukraine.

Within the launch of the course, Natalia Marchuk, Judge of the Criminal Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court, gave an overview of the evaluation of electronic evidence in criminal proceedings. Andrii Harkusha, Acting Head of the Detective Unit of the Digital Forensic Laboratory of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, presented the issue of admissibility and reliability of evidence in electronic form in criminal proceedings. Stanislav Samoilov, Head of the 3rd Directorate (Information Technology and Programming) of the Cyber Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine, spoke on relevant  issues in the field of cybercrime in Ukraine.

This course for self-learning  was developed jointly by the Cybercrime Programme Office and the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Programme of the Council of Europe, with support of the Cybercrime@Octopus and the follow-up Octopus projects, funded by voluntary contributions. Joint CoE / EU projects GLACY+ and CyberEAST supported as well development of this course.

The HELP course on Cybercrime and Electronic Evidence is also available on the HELP Platform in self-learning format. New users to the HELP platform will have to create an account before accessing this course or any of the over 52 online courses developed by the Council of Europe and available in self-learning format.  Currently, 12748 Ukrainian lawyers have accounts on the HELP eLearning Platform, putting Ukraine on the third place according to the number of users among the 46 Council of Europe member states. Currently, 33 HELP courses are available in Ukrainian on the CoE HELP E-learning Platform, and the full catalogue of HELP courses is available  here.