“Digital operational-search activity” and digitalisation in counteracting crimes

Introduction. The development of digital technologies and their application in various spheres of modern life raises the question of digitalisation of certain areas of law enforcement practice, not excluding operational-search activities. However, how digital innovations affect operational-search activity and its content, how they should be included in its theory – these issues remain problematic and require a separate analysis. Methods. The research involved a set of methods. These are primarily the categories of dialectics (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, generalisation) and general scientific methods of cognition (observation, description, comparison, including methods of theoretical level – classification, abstraction), as well as private scientific methods. The main principles of system-activity and formal-logical approaches were used. The results of the research include conclusions concerning the need for developing digital means and methods of operational-search activities. Such an idea should be implemented not within the framework of the theory of “digital operational-search activity”, the concept of which is formulated vaguely and controversially, but as an independent area of operational work, relying on both covert and overt methods of collecting and analysing data in digital networks and the Internet, obtaining digital traces, monitoring the Internet and cyber intelligence data.