Emerging and Future Technology Trends in the Links between Cybercrime, Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants

An analysis of the links between human trafficking, smuggling of migrants and cybercrime, we suggest, exposes the overlap between legal principle and technological methodology This paper focuses on the role of emerging technological trends can have in the paradigm that may involve the protection of those who commit crime. We suggest that these issues should be considered at the development stage of technology and the proposal stage of an investigation, particularly where data is both harnessed and collected to tackle organised crime. The tension that trafficking and smuggling creates in the context of cybercrime is a challenge to rules-based order and rights-based policy because it requires a focus on protection rather than prosecution of those hitherto considered to be perpetrators. This in turn requires a greater interaction between the disciplines of law and technology.