Artificial intelligence (AI) could soon play a bigger role in the fight against crime, according to Portugal’s Attorney General – but only if used responsibly under “strict guidelines.”
Speaking in Lisbon at the opening of the 22nd Meeting of CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) Attorneys General, Amadeu Guerra said AI can be “a valuable ally in criminal investigation, in procedural management and in identifying patterns in large volumes of data.”
However, he warned that “the adoption of this technology must be accompanied by strict guarantees, ensuring that decisions maintain impartiality, respect the fundamental rights of criminal procedure and data protection”.
Guerra stressed that justice systems must keep up with the pace of organised, transnational crime: “We cannot respond to increasingly organised and transnational crime with disorganisation and disarray, nor with an exclusively local vision.”
“Legal and judicial cooperation, as well as all forms of formal and informal communication and exchange of experiences between the Public Prosecutor’s Offices, are fundamental instruments for the exercise of these functions and in particular for the common goal of combating complex and transnational criminal phenomena, namely economic and financial crime, corruption, organised and violent crime,” Portugal’s top prosecutor said.
He also highlighted the importance of cooperation between prosecutors across Portuguese-speaking countries, saying that new forms of crime demand teamwork across borders and disciplines.
Portugal’s Justice Minister, Rita Júdice, also weighed in, calling digital evidence “absolutely decisive” in modern investigations. “All human activity, whether legitimate or criminal, leaves traces and, today, almost all traces leave a digital mark,” she said. “That’s why the admissibility and reliability of digital evidence will be increasingly decisive for the success of criminal proceedings”.
The government, she added, plans to update laws on collecting and processing digital evidence, and to strengthen technological tools for police, prosecutors and courts.
The two-day meeting, held at the Attorney General’s Office in Lisbon, brings together top prosecutors from Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste, along with representatives from Guinea-Bissau and Macau.
