The Online Reporting Button (ORB)

NetSafe has launched The ORB, with the Minister of Consumer Affairs Hon. Heather Roy and Police Commissioner Howard Broad. Police Commissioner Howard Broad hosted the launch and NZ Police have offered key support to The ORB.  The ORB will play a critical part in reducing online crime in New Zealand. The ORB concerns only crime that has been committed online, of which there has been a steady rise over the past few years and will continue to rise.

The ORB is also a great example of inter-agency cooperation.  The ORB is supported by the Department of Internal Affairs, Commerce Commission, Privacy Commissioner, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Centre for Critical Infrastructural Protection, NZ Customs Service and NZ Police; NetSafe is funded by Internet NZ and the Ministry of Education. One of NetSafe’s key responsibilities is educating the public about responsible and safe use of cyberspace.  The ORB will play a role in ensuring authorities can recognise a crime that is committed online, and get these crimes reported to the right agency to follow up on.

What is the ORB?
The ORB is a website that allows New Zealanders to report the full range of cyber offences and crimes. These reports are then routed to the appropriate partner agency being: The NZ Police, Customs, the SFO, Office of the Privacy Commissioner, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Commerce Commission, and the DIA. There are also a number of other corporate and government agencies that may receive information as a result of the ORB (when complaints do not fit the criteria of the main enforcement partners). It is also expected that NetSafe will respond directly to some reports where no actionable offence or crime has been committed.

Why was the ORB Created?
Netsafe already know that a lot of people don't know who to report cyber offences too – because they ring NetSafe. They also know that people often go to the wrong enforcement agency, and it can be quite a difficult process to make a complaint about online offences and crimes. The ORB creates an opportunity to promote a single reporting point. All people need to do visit the ORB, and they will be sent to the correct destination.

As well as that, the ORB provides an opportunity to embed educative content into the complaints process. We have analysis of every user step within the ORB so that we can understand what people do and how they respond to the information provided. We can use this data to constantly improve the complaint process which will in turn improve the quality of the complaint data - and the experience of users of the ORB.

Project History
The ORB was always an ambitious project. NetSafe does not know of any other country that has managed to create a similar single point of reporting for such a wide range of cyber offences. Representatives of the key stakeholders were formally brought together and agreed on the concept of the ORB. It was agreed that the ORB would (as much as possible) directly replicate the information captured by each of the agencies through their own online reporting systems. The ORB concept was defined and designed throughout 2009, and has been constructed and is now ready to use by visiting: www.theORB.org.nz.

How does it work?
The ORB is a highly secure website that guides users through the process of making a complaint about a cyber offence or crime. Users are clearly informed that if they are in danger or a crime is being committed they should call 111.

Each complaint is assigned to the appropriate agency (in some cases automatically, and in other cases with the intervention of a NetSafe Staff member). The complaint data is stored by the ORB until the partner agency accepts custody of the data – at which point it is removed from the ORB. By capturing data about the way users progress through the reporting progress, it is possible to constantly improve the experience for users of the ORB.