also tends to have institutional implications, as crime and security mandates tend to be assigned to different bodies. Practical Implications of Cybercrime in the Commonwealth 1.38 Commonwealth member states are as much affected by the challenge of cybercrime as other states. The practical implications of cybercrime depend in part on the characteristics of the countries affected, including both those from which offenders operate and those in which the effects are felt, and the criminal justice and other capacities of the countries concerned. 1.39 The Commonwealth is notable for the diverse range of member states in terms of culture and technological development. Over half of its citizens are under 25, and the Commonwealth contains some of the world’s largest and smallest countries by population and some of its richest and poorest economies. This combination of homogeneity as well as diversity poses some practical challenges in collaborating effectively against cybercrime, but it also provides some significant advantages in making the Commonwealth a potential setting for creative and innovative discussions and policy development, and for specific initiatives such as the linking of smaller states into specific co-operative relationships. 1.40 Broadly speaking, the different implications of cybercrime on Commonwealth member states can be usefully considered in the following groups, based on size and the degree, pace and direction of development. Implications for developed Commonwealth countries 1.41 Developed member states have a long history of engagement with information and communications technologies and with efforts to prevent and suppress cybercrime. They have the private sector expertise to develop and market new technologies, or the resources to import such expertise, and to incorporate crime-control elements into them, and the public sector expertise to develop and maintain up-to-date laws and law enforcement capacity. For major transnational cases they have greater prosecutorial capacity and resources, which may affect decisions about where to prosecute if jurisdictional requirements are met14. 1.42 The speed with which new technologies and their criminal misuse evolves poses a major challenge even for their research and development capacity, but beyond this the major domestic interest of such states is to ensure that their laws and law enforcement capacities are adequate and effective at home, and their major international interest is to protect their nationals and national interests by encouraging and assisting other countries to establish and maintain basic laws, law enforcement capacity and preventive security measures. 1.43 Such states have heavily invested public and private resources in applications that can be threatened or compromised by cybercrime or the fear of cybercrime. These include general commercial interests in areas such as e-commerce and the provision of banking, etrading and other financial services, and many specific commercial interests related to the provision of hardware, software and network or communications services. In the public sector they include quasi-public elements such as the ownership, control and regulation of mass media, telecommunications and other services considered as ‘essential’ or quasi14 For a useful list of the jurisdictional, legal and practical considerations see Results of the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Expert Group to Prepare a Study on Fraud and the Criminal Misuse and Falsification of Identity, U.N. document no. E/CN.15/2007/8/Add.2 and paragraph 50. 19