Digital crime

Introduction

Digital crime (commonly known as cybercrime) comprises "digital" offences committed on telecommunication networks, in particular the Internet. In the police crime statistics (PCS) digital offences are identified on the basis of the modus operandi. It is therefore not a new form of offences that has been recorded by the police in the PCS but the identification of offences with a digital component.

Methodology

Digital crime is determined using the combination "offence - modus operandi". Currently there are 33 different types of modus operandi, which are divided into 5 major areas:

• Economic cybercrime (24 modus operandi)
• Cyber sexual crimes (4 modus operandi)
• Cyber damage to reputation and unfair practices (3 modus operandi)
• Darknet (1 modus operandi)
• Other (1 modus operandi)

If a modus operandi is determined, the selection of possible offences is consequently reduced. Thus, with regard to the Swiss Criminal Code (SCC) only 29 offences are relevant. However, other federal laws that are not taken into account in the results listed below may also be concerned, such as the Narcotics Act (NarcA) or other related federal laws such as the Weapons Act (WA), the Federal Act on Unfair Competition and the Federal Act on the Protection of Trademarks.

Key figures 2023

	Total	including a modus operandi of digital crime	Proportion
Total	102 515	43 839	42,8%
Fraud (art. 146)	29 314	23 399	79,8%
Computer fraud (art. 147)	15 481	7 236	46,7%
Money laundering (art. 305bis)	4 699	4 096	87,2%
Pornography (art. 197)	2 967	2 535	85,4%
Unauthorised obtaining of data (art. 143)	2 125	1 682	79,2%
Extortion (art. 156)	1 765	1 319	74,7%
Unauthorised access to a data processing system (art. 143bis)	938	676	72,1%
Damage to data (art. 144bis)	750	648	86,4%
Forgery of a document (art. 251)	5 400	577	10,7%
Breach of secrecy or privacy through the use of an image-carrying device (art. 179quater)	1 014	401	39,5%
Identity theft (art. 179decies)	478	290	60,7%
Defamation (art. 173)	1 669	221	13,2%
Wilful defamation (art. 174)	1 343	207	15,4%
Obtaining personal data without authorisation (art. 179novies)	199	118	59,3%
Insult (art. 177)	12 329	100	0,8%
Coercion (art. 181)	2 739	95	3,5%
Threatening behaviour (art. 180)	10 620	76	0,7%
Sexual acts with children (art. 187)	1 150	66	5,7%
Other offences to the SCC	7 535	97	1,3%

Remark: art. 179decies CC (identity theft) in force since 1 Sept. 2023. State of the database: 15.02.2024
Source: FSO - Police crime statistics (PCS) 2023

	Offences	Detection rate
Total Digital Crime	43 839	23,3%
Economic cybercrime	40 496	18,3%
including cyber fraud	30 331	18,7%
Cyber sexual crimes	2 611	91,5%
Cyber damage to reputation and unfair practices	725	59,3%
Darknet	4	50,0%
Other (Data Leaking)	3	66,7%

State of the database: 15.02.2024
Source: FSO - Police crime statistics (PCS) 2023

Further information

Press releases

Limitations

Regardless of the method used, these first results on digital crime should be interpreted with caution. Not all digital offences are reported to the police, even if they were correctly identified by the victims or company (i.e. unreported cases or “dark figure”). Moreover, the list of modus operandi is not exhaustive and will continuously be updated as new phenomena emerge or are currently missing such as e.g. the representations of acts of violence in relation to art. 135 SCC.

The classification of offences with an unobvious modus operandi and the frequency with which they are reported to the police indicate that the statistics are not exhaustive.

Statistical sources and concepts

Surveys