TUECS SIGNED

Project "TUECS" data sheet

The following table provides information about the project.

 Partnership

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 Project objective

This research examines Europol's fight against cybercrime in the context of Uberization. It investigates Europol's Uber-like intermediary role within an online platform where it matches idle forensic investigation capacity of private actors with national law enforcement agencies who are seeking technical guidance and collaboration in cybercrime. It aims to reveal the interaction dynamics between Europol, national law enforcement agencies and private actors who have diverging interests in a sensitive crime area where investigations are made with secrecy and discretion. The research qualitatively investigates (official documents, review of current literature and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders) Uberization in three major cybercrime areas namely; ransomware, money laundering in cryptocurrencies and online child sexual abuse that Europol has already pushed private and public actors to collaborate. The central argument of this project is that an Uber-like online platform governed by Europol offers an entrepreneurial opportunity for private cybersecurity actors to connect with law enforcement agencies who need skilled-experts to investigate cybercrime cases. This innovative governance model gathers all stakeholders under the same platform, aggregates their qualifications using different algorithms, reduces their cooperation costs, regulates and motivates their interaction. This research aims to contribute to the existing scientific knowledge by the development of Uberization theory. It also provides an alternative governance model to enhance public and private partnership not only in cybercrime area but also in other policy areas where an innovative solution is needed to fill the expert deficit.