14th August 2018 TONGAN The Attorney General’s Office wishes to announce that Tonga has joined the G7 24/7 Cybercrime Network of Contact Points as the 84th member, from 3 August 2018.
This 24/7 Network is a group of contact points from the 84 member countries who would operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, to respond to urgent requests to preserve digital evidence that was needed by another member country in order to investigate crimes against computers or hand-held electronic devices, or crimes that used computers or electronic hand-held mobile devices.
The contact points for Tonga are located in the Attorney General’s Office, after agreement with Tonga Police and the Ministry for Information and Communications, due to the legal nature of the work involved.
The Attorney General’s Office may now be able to contact, on behalf of law enforcement agencies in Tonga, the points of contact in the 24/7 Network to assist with criminal investigations here in Tonga involving computers or electronic hand-held mobile devices.
The contact points in the Network are required to be fluent in speaking and writing the English language, be on call for 24 hours of the day, 7 days of the week, and also be familiar with cybercrime and procedural powers provided under the law.
Any contact from Tonga to the G7 24/7 Network can only be made through the contact points registered through the Attorney General’s Office.
Tonga’s membership application was submitted to the Chairman of the G7 24/7 Network, which is currently held by the United States Department of Justice, during a regional workshop delivered by the 24/7 Network for Asian countries from 31 July to 3 August 2018 in Melaka, Malaysia. Participants from the Pacific were invited to the workshop from Tonga and Fiji.
Tonga and Fiji are currently the only members of the Network from the Pacific Region,but there is hope that more countries from the Pacific will join the Network in the near future.
In becoming a member of this 24/7 Network, Tonga now expands its international cooperation capacity in cybercrime, after acceding to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention) in May 2017, which also has a 24/7 network of points of contact under that Convention for its 59 current parties. Some of those 59 Convention parties are also members of the G7 24/7 Network.
ENDS
For further information or clarification, please contact:
Mr ‘Aminiasi Kefu,
Acting Attorney General and Director of Public Prosecutions,
Attorney General’s Office
Telephone Numbers: (676) 24055/24007 (Office), (676) 25347 (Direct), (676) 7815314 (Mobile)
Facsimile: (676) 24005
Email: dpp@crownlaw.gov.to, aakefu@gmail.com