On July 19th and 20th of this year, the Academy for the Judiciary of the Ministry of Justice, together with the Department of Prosecutorial Affairs, MOJ, and the Anti-Money Laundering Office,  Executive Yuan jointly held an international seminar on "Metaverse and Encryption World: Repurposing Old Laws for the Changing Society . For epidemic reasons, all foreign speakers took part online, while domestic speakers and participants combined online and physical attendance.

The symposium was divided into sub-themes such as "Emerging Legal Issues of the Metaverse", "Challenges and Legal Boundary of Accessing Encrypted Data", "The Impact of Cryptocurrency on Financial Supervision and Anti-Money Laundering", and "Investigating Darknet and Combating Cybercrime". The symposium was kicked off by the opening remarks of the Minister of Justice, Mr. Ching-Chiang TSAI, and the first session saw the introduction of the complicated concept of "metaverse" in simple terms and the related emerging legal issues by the Chairman of the Taiwan Association of Information Technology & Intellectual Property, Mr. Chia-Chun CHEN. In the second session, Thomas Goger, Senior Public Prosecutor of the Bamberg Public Prosecutor's Office, Germany and Robrecht De Keersmaecker, Deputy Prosecutor-General at the Prosecutor-General's Office of Antwerp, Belgium, provided practical experience on the legal channels and means of accessing encrypted data by law enforcement units in Germany and Belgium, respectively; the US Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent shared the Virtual Assets Unit's operational framework for action and law enforcement case studies on financial regulations on cryptocurrency and money laundering prevention; Special Agent Patrice Anthony Gérard of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre and Investigator Thomas Guillon of the Cybercrime Sub-directorate, Central Directorate of the Judicial Police of France shared their law enforcement experiences in darknet investigations.

Due to the impact of the epidemic and border control measures, it was regrettable that foreign experts could not be invited to speak in person at this international symposium. However, thanks to the advancement of technology, the speakers were able to overcome the time difference and distance to attend the symposium online to share and have advanced judicial discussions with the participants on the trends of technology and legal development in their respective countries. In addition to the 61st class of Judicial Officers and the 4th class of Prosecutor Selection Class of the Academy, 250 law enforcement organs and government department colleagues signed up for the event to express their views and ask enthusiastic questions about the topics of the presentations.

This was the first time that the Academy co-organized an international symposium with the Ministry of Justice and the Anti-Money Laundering Office, Executive Yuan, and it was conceived through different perspectives to provide diverse and comprehensive themes. The contents of the symposium not only served as important information for the future planning of the Academy's curriculum but also provided important references for the Ministry of Justice in formulating criminal policies and promoting the actions of the Anti-Money Laundering Office. The President of the Academy, Ms. Li-Ling KER, hopes to invite overseas experts and scholars to visit the Academy for the Judiciary after the epidemic has subsided and to continue to promote international exchanges.