"It's time that we start to tackle and combat this criminal side of technology," said Hourn, in a special interview with ANTARA at the ASEAN Secretariat here on Thursday.
He admits that technology has many benefits. However, technology can also be misused to take advantage of people to engage in illegal activities, such as human trafficking, which is increasingly common in ASEAN member countries.
Therefore, he said that such cyber crimes must be fought through integrated cooperation, especially among law enforcement agencies in ASEAN member countries.
"That's what we should do moving forward in law enforcement agencies across the ASEAN member states, particularly the national police of the state," he said.
In this effort, he considered it necessary to take steps to share information, share intelligence, share those perspectives and experience among member countries to effectively fight these crimes.
"We should work together to tackle this issue as a whole. You know, this taking the community of ASEAN as a whole, in terms of how we should really deal with this issue once and for all," he said.
Through these integrated efforts, he believes cyber crimes involving human trafficking will be combatted.
"Of course, we can really crack down on these challenges that have been facing ASEAN for some time," he said.
In the meantime, he emphasized the need for efforts to focus on overcoming problems faced by victims of cyber crime, especially victims of human trafficking, through the right systems.
"We have to make sure that we look at the victims," he said.
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Reporter: Katriana
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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