Australian law enforcement agencies need to scale up their AI capabilities if they are to effectively address the use of AI in criminal activity, the Joint Committee on Law Enforcement was told.

Scott Weber, CEO of the Police Federation of Australia, said law agencies are falling behind AI advancements, and that a proactive approach needs to be adopted.

“Stop the email, stop the cyber hack, stop the money laundering before it actually occurs, or pick it up straight away—that’s not occurring,” he said.

AI literacy was identified as a barrier to building AI capabilities within law enforcement agencies, said Matthew Rippon, the acting CEO of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC).

“That’s something that we’ve got an eye on, [and] whole of government guard rails [need to be] set up from a policy perspective to guide agencies into how they would approach the adoption of AI,” he said.

An estimated $38 billion (US$24.7 billion) was laundered during 2023-24 from various offences like firearms trafficking, drug trafficking, and major fraud, Rippon said.

Barriers to AI Literacy

Rippon said budget limitations and the lack of AI policies were hampering his agency’s ability to foster AI literacy.

Meanwhile, the lack of access to criminal intelligence databases was a barrier for the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), the country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulator.

AUSTRAC Deputy CEO Intelligence John Moss said such data is required by advanced analytics to detect anomalies.

“There are half a million reports coming to AUSTRAC every day. To work out the ones that are important, to work up the referral to law enforcement or to a private sector public environment, we need the context of the entities, the addresses, the phone numbers. We don’t have that today,” he said.

The centre has been working with banks to understand how they deploy AI in their business models to combat money laundering and tourism financing, Moss added.

Low Retention Rates And University Support

The retention rate and support from universities also play a vital part in building AI capabilities.

Weber said the AFP currently faces low recruitment and retention rates.

“The next thing, which is a long-term one, is making sure that we protect the protectors, that is retaining our skilled police officers. Police officers are leaving. Our attrition rates are extremely high,” Weber said.

“We have this problem, and so does New Zealand as well, where we are losing skilled officers,” he said, saying retention mechanisms and strategies were vital.

The CEO also noted the role universities play in training police manpower.

“We do need more specialised police and targeting, whether that be recruiting straight from university or extra credit,” said Weber.

Ian McCartney, deputy commissioner of AFP, echoed the call for more cooperation with universities.

“I think the U.S. does very well from a law enforcement perspective, the partnership approach with the universities on problem solving,” he said. “They’ll partner with some of these academic institutions to work quite quickly in terms of some of those challenges.”

McCartney also commended Krissy Barrett, the new AFP Commissioner, on enhancing the use of technology and AI within the agency.

“I think you’ll see exponential adoption within the AFP, [and] using [AI] responsibly,” he said.

“In terms of the crime types that we investigate—financial crime, amongst child sex, exploitation—all the crime types we investigate, we must embrace AI in terms of those challenges.

“I don’t think we’ve fully grasped what that impact actually is, but there’s a clear [recommendation], particularly from an AFP and the other state and territory police forces, that we actually need to use AI in terms of some of the strategies we’ve [put] in place,” he said.