Written answers
Tuesday, 3 November 2015
Department of Justice and Equality
Crime Data
John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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580. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if online fraud and cybercrime are included in crime statistics; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37930/15]
Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, the Central Statistics Office (CSO), as the national statistical agency, is responsible for the publication of recorded crime statistics.
In relation to the matters referred to, I have requested the CSO to provide the information directly to the Deputy.
TJ McIntyre
Posted on 1 Dec 2015 3:24 pm (Report this comment)
This answer fails to address the fact that there is very little information on the prevalence of cybercrime in Ireland. Because Irish law generally treats cybercrime as a variant of "ordinary" crime the Irish Crime Classification System (ICCS) recognises only one distinct cybercrime – the offence of unauthorised access to data (Central Statistics Office, Irish Crime Classification System, 2008, p. 14 http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/docume...). The most recent Garda recorded crime statistics show this as increasing from seven recorded offences in 2008 to 35 in 2012 (http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/docume...). Other cybercrimes are subsumed into the more general criminal damage or dishonesty offences. For example, a prosecution of two students for defacing Fine Gael’s website shortly before the 2011 general election was charged as criminal damage and therefore would not be apparent from the statistics. Similarly online fraud is not specially recorded in any way, and the CSO statistics don't tell us anything about its prevalance.
A further complication is that the recorded crime statistics do not reflect reports made to other state bodies with investigation and prosecution functions – particularly the Data Protection Commissioner – and there is no statistical data available in relation to these.