projects
Project 001
Australia’s National Cybercrime Data Facility
Project overview
The Australian Cybercrime Observatory is a national data facility that uses advanced data‑mining and data‑linking techniques to track real‑time crime trends across both the surface web and the dark web. It maps evolving patterns across a wide spectrum of criminal activity, including cyber‑attacks, extremist and abusive online behaviour, fraud, and illicit drug, firearm, and wildlife markets. Our facility provides Australia with a sovereign capability to systematically analyse the methods, drivers, and evolution of cybercrime - and equips researchers and stakeholders with the intelligence needed to detect, prevent, and disrupt emerging threats.
Originally established as the ANU Cybercrime Observatory under the leadership of the late Emeritus Professor Rod Broadhurst, the Observatory has recently merged with the Adelaide Cybercrime Laboratory and is now headquartered at Adelaide University.
Research partners
Adelaide University, the Australian National University, Deakin University.
Project 002
Forensic Intelligence Analysis Across Large‑Scale Data
Project overview
This program of research combines AI with advanced analytical methods to create a new digital forensics capability that improves large‑scale intelligence gathering and analysis for law enforcement. It processes multiple data types, including digital media, text, and metadata, using computer vision, biometric analysis, natural language processing, and pattern detection to produce actionable intelligence. The software has shown value in a wide range of policing contexts and supports complex, high‑volume investigative work.
Applications for child sexual abuse investigations
The ACO has been awarded an Australian Research Council Linkage Project to apply this technology to child sexual abuse investigations. This project aims to generate new knowledge about the victims appearing in child sexual abuse material, with the potential to transform police practice. It utilises an innovative methodological approach to deliver new insights about victimisation and identify: who is being victimised, who is the highest risk of repeat victimisation, and when/where victimisation takes place. Project activities engage restricted police data to triangulate information with existing databases to provide actionable priorities for investigators. A scalable solution will be delivered to law enforcement by project's end.
Funding details
-
Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP240200994).
-
Australian Institute of Criminology Child Sexual Abuse Material Reduction Research Program.
Research partners
Adelaide University, Deakin University, South Australia Police, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (Australia)
Project 003
Growing Up with AI: Understanding use, risk and online activity among young people
Project overview
This project addresses a national need for evidence on adolescent uses of the internet, and their experiences of online sexual victimisation involving the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Using national prevalence surveys, this project estimates how many adolescents have experienced online sexual victimisation in Australia, both AI-and non-AI, the factors associated with risk of victimisation (especially online behaviours and platforms), how young people disclose their victimisation and to whom. This project also gathers large scale data on online engagement and behaviours, safety and protective practices, and help seeking, to help understand how young people use the internet, and how these uses interact with risk.
Research partners
Adelaide University, Queensland University of Technology, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (Australia), the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation
In the media
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-07/1-in-25-children-targeted-with-ai-sexual-imagery/106878000
Project 004
Missed signals in the escalation to extremist violence
Project overview
Australia faces a critical blind spot: the relationship between child sexual exploitation (CSE), domestic and sexual violence (DSV) and extremist violence. Recent poly-offending – now known as sadistic online exploitation (SOE) suggests an evolving extremism environment; this project aims to deliver world-first evidence on these connections. We will measure behavioural and psychological profiles of SOE, including variation by ideology and age, including analyses of dark web and clear web spaces, and internet enabled platforms. Outcomes include behavioural and psychological risk profiles, measurement of informational movement and transfer in online spaces, and an applied understanding of the intersection of offending, and motivation underpinning SOE.
Funding Details
Office of National Intelligence National Intelligence Discovery Grants
Project 005
Understanding how children recognise and navigate online risk
Project overview
This project examines how young people use and navigate online environments, with a particular focus on how they identify and respond to potentially risky online interactions. Through a series of studies exploring online experiences, decision-making, and perceptions of risk, the project seeks to generate new insights into how children identify and navigate a range of potentially risky situations online. Findings will inform the development of evidence-based safety education resources designed to help young people stay safe online.
A full summary of the project findings will be published here following completion of the next phase of the study: ‘Detecting Risky Online Behaviour’.
Funding details
Firefly Children’s Foundation
In the media
‘Do your parents check your phone?’: SA study reveals escalating grooming messages
Australian kids targeted online at scale, new study reveals
Online grooming Australia: Adelaide Uni study exposes shocking threat to children
Would your child recognise the early signs of online grooming?
Project 006
Understanding adolescent pathways into cybercrime
Project overview
This project conducted the world’s first longitudinal study of adolescent cybercrime, examining how young people’s use of technology shapes pathways into behaviours such as hacking, cyberfraud, cyberbullying, cyberhate, cyberviolence, sexting, and image‑based abuse. Outputs from this research has generated new knowledge about the social, technical and development factors that are associated with adolescent engagement in cybercrime.
Funding details
Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP170103538).
Research partners
Adelaide University, Flinders University, Griffith University, Michigan State University