Recently appointed Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) chief executive Sarah Benson says the nature of threats to fair play will evolve leading into the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. Benson, a former Australian Federal Police chief forensic scientist, was SIA's acting chief executive following the departure of David Sharpe last August. And on taking the role permanently last month, she predicted ongoing integrity issues from organised crime, doping and match-fixing to rising incidents involving children in sport. "Some of the challenges as we look to 2032 are just really understanding the vulnerabilities that sport and the system in Australia faces from those integrity threats," Benson said. "Not only for 2032, but on the pathway with a number of major events. "For us, we have started the process of horizon-scanning to look at what those integrity threats are and then looking back at the Paris Olympics and across a number of sports to see what are some global trends and issues that we're seeing in sports." Benson added: "The high-level themes we will be looking at into the future are the impact of emerging technology and AI. "Online abuse of athletes and officials — that is a problem here and now and is only going to compound as technology and social media platforms keep evolving. "Societal attitudes towards doping-friendly competitions … as well as issues that may be posed from emerging sports such as e-sports." Benson said striking a balance between monitoring present threats and those potentially in the future was vital for SIA. Last year, SIA managed more than 250 child safeguarding or discrimination complaints across more than 50 sports. And in the six months to February this year, child safeguarding accounted for 100 per cent of complaints investigated by SIA. "Those figures are because we have that increased awareness and also athletes now have a place to go," Benson said. "But certainly when we look at the child safeguarding numbers, no-one in their right mind would want to see that number above zero." SIA was formed in 2020, replacing the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) while also bringing under its umbrella all other sporting integrity matters. Benson said recent global criticism of the World Anti-Doping Agency was impacting SIA. "When trust in the global system is questioned, then it, by extension, relates to the role that we perform," she said.