Enhancing Kazakhstan’s capacities to effectively address crime by requesting electronic evidence across borders

From 8 to 11 November, the OSCE Transnational Threats Department organized a course on requesting electronic evidence across borders in Kosshy, in close co-operation with the OSCE Programme Office in Astana, the UNODC and the Law Enforcement Academy under the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

“As a criminal justice practitioner for more than 20 years, I have witnessed the growing importance of electronic evidence in all types of criminal investigations. Yet requesting such evidence from private service providers, in particular those based in foreign jurisdictions, is still a fast-evolving field and there are no unified internationally-binding norms or rules. Sharing experiences, good practices and lessons learned on how to obtain electronic evidence from abroad is therefore essential,” said Rainer Franosch, Deputy Director-General for Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the Ministry of Justice of the German Federal State of Hesse and one of the international experts delivering the training.

The three-day training was followed by a one-day roundtable in which participants and experts discussed possible changes to the operational procedures of Kazakhstan’s criminal justice institutions to improve their capacities in obtaining electronic evidence from abroad.

“Kazakhstan has limited experience with making direct requests to foreign service providers for electronic evidence. This event has provided us with knowledge and concrete tools that will help our law enforcement to use this avenue of obtaining evidence more frequently in the future,” said Almaz Amankulov, one of the training participants and lecturer at the Law Enforcement Academy under the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

This was the third delivery of the course in Central Asia, following events held in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan earlier this year. Participants represented Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, including its Academies in Almaty and Karaganda, the National Security Committee, the Main Directorate of the Military Police of the Ministry of Defense, the Academy of Justice under the Supreme Court, Financial Monitoring Agency, and the Law Enforcement Academy under the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Developed jointly by the UNODC, Interpol, and the OSCE, with the financial support from the European Union, the course is based on the United Nations Practical Guide on Requesting Electronic Evidence across Borders. The modules of the course covered available instruments for requesting electronic evidence from service providers based in foreign jurisdictions, including requests for preservation, voluntary disclosure, emergency disclosure, and mutual legal assistance, as well as channels for police-to-police co-operation. The course also discussed the importance of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms in all these procedures.

This training was delivered within the extra-budgetary project “Capacity Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia”, which is funded by the United States of America, Germany, and the Republic of Korea.