Meeting of the Parliament 17 December 2025
From listening to today’s debate, one thing should be clear to us all: cybercrime is not a niche concern but a widespread problem that affects more and more of our society. The chief constable has spoken about the significant growth in digital crime, and the chair of the National Cyber Resilience Advisory Board has described how cyberattacks are now growing to be the norm.
The statistics—some of which we have already heard today—underscore that it is a widespread and growing problem. The Scottish Government’s crime figures show that more than 14,000 cybercrimes were recorded in 2024-25, which is the equivalent of almost 40 a day. Within that, there were more than 4,000 cases of sexual cybercrime—almost 1,500 of which involved children—and more than 7,500 cyberfraud cases.
To show just how much cybercrime underpins crime as a whole, consider this: more than a quarter of sexual offences feature cybercrime; likewise, almost half of all fraud cases and almost 95 per cent of threats and extortion do, too.
We all recognise the scale of the problem and the serious risk that it will only grow, given the advent of artificial intelligence. If we expect the police to tackle it, we must recognise that they require specialist skills, such as in digital forensics—they need cryptocurrency experts and data scientists. The advent of AI is only going to add to the complexity.
The Scottish Government needs to be in listening mode—specifically, listening to Police Scotland when it says that it needs almost £6 million to bolster its cyber capabilities. We all understand that there are budget pressures, but I point out to ministers that almost one in 10 Scots experienced fraud last year, almost 40 per cent of which involved cybercrime, and that Scotland’s small businesses are estimated to lose an eye-watering £384 million a year to cyberattacks, according to analysis by Vodafone.