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 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 CPS 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 28 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 2022

	Total	including a modus operandi of digital crime	Proportion
Total	88 478	33 345	37,7%
Fraud (art. 146)	24 195	18 338	75,8%
Computer fraud (art. 147)	10 641	3 858	36,3%
Money laundering (art. 305bis)	3 751	3 025	80,6%
Pornography (art. 197)	3 220	2 748	85,3%
Extortion (art. 156)	1 770	1 303	73,6%
Unauthorised obtaining of data (art. 143)	1 395	1 080	77,4%
Damage to data (art. 144bis)	731	659	90,2%
Unauthorised access to a data processing system (art. 143bis)	843	601	71,3%
Breach of secrecy or privacy through the use of an image-carrying device (art. 179quater)	951	378	39,7%
Forgery of a document (art. 251)	4 523	365	8,1%
Defamation (art. 173)	1 700	253	14,9%
Wilful defamation (art. 174)	1 320	174	13,2%
Insult (art. 177)	12 030	121	1,0%
Sexual acts with children (art. 187)	1 218	82	6,7%
Misuse of a telecommunications installation (art. 179septies)	1 419	80	5,6%
Threatening behaviour (art. 180)	10 164	78	0,8%
Obtaining personal data without authorisation (art. 179novies)	132	71	53,8%
Coercion (art. 181)	2 765	62	2,2%
Other offences to the SCC	5 710	69	1,2%

State of the database: 16.02.2023
Source: FSO - Police crime statistics (PCS) 2022

	Offences	Detection rate
Total Digital Crime	33 345	34,3%
Economic cybercrime	29 677	27,9%
including cyber fraud	22 207	30,1%
Cyber sexual crimes	2 820	92,9%
Cyber damage to reputation and unfair practices	847	62,9%
Darknet	0	-
Other (Data Leaking)	1	0,0%

State of the database: 16.02.2023
Source: FSO - Police crime statistics (PCS) 2022

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