Garda cyber unit cases rise 22% but backlog persists

Additional staff appointed, with more due to be taken on

The number of cases taken on by the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau (GNCCB) increased from 400 in 2020 to 490 in 2021.

The Garda’s cybercrime bureau took on 22% more cases in 2021, but the unit is struggling to make significant inroads into its estimated three-year backlog.

Releasing new figures, Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the number of cases taken on by the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau (GNCCB) increased from 400 in 2020 to 490 in 2021.

Last month, the Policing Authority said that the waiting list to analyse devices — most of them for child abuse imagery — was not only missing the target of under a year, but was “in the region of three years”.

The matter was subsequently raised at the annual conference of the Garda Representative Association with calls for proper resourcing of the bureau and its satellite regional units.

Despite taking on additional staff — and with more due — the GNCCB is trying to grapple with growing referrals of devices for forensic examination, compounded by ever-increasing storage capacities of the devices.

The expansion of the bureau was flagged under Garda plans in 2016 and, in September 2018, by the report of the Commission on the Future of Policing, which called on the bureau to be “substantially expanded as a matter of urgency”.

The bureau was sanctioned 59 new detectives in 2020 and took on 25 in 2021 and a further 17 in March of this year.

Another 11 detectives are due this month with advertisements for 26 civilian cyber experts expected to go out next month.

Satellite hubs

The four satellite hubs — in Cork, Galway, Mullingar and Wexford — became operational last year.

The bureau is estimated to have closed almost 30% more cases from its backlog in 2021, but this has not had the expected impact given the increase in new referrals and the increased capacity of those devices.

Gardaí hope the new staff joining will make an impact on the backlog by the final quarter of 2022.

The bureau is involved in several complex international investigations, including one this week coordinated by the EU police cooperation agency Europol.

Last month, two people were arrested in Cork following a joint investigation by the bureau and the FBI into global cybercrime offences.

In a statement, Garda HQ said investment in the GNCCB expanded in 2021 with the new satellite hubs and added: “This included the allocation of additional personnel at detective sergeant and detective garda ranks to the bureau in the last twelve months, with further appointments expected this year to include civilian analysts.” 

On waiting times, it said: “Every case submitted to GNCCB for forensic analysis is different and each electronic device is forensically examined based on its own complexity. It is not possible to definitively state how long it ‘typically’ takes to schedule devices for analysis or how long it ‘typically’ takes to carry out the analysis.”

It said each case was ‘triaged’ based on a risk criteria and forensically examined accordingly. It said the risk assessment was kept under review.