A parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe yesterday held a
debate in Paris before a panel of internet experts and others on
its draft Convention on Cybercrime. The Council hopes it will
become the first international treaty on cybercrime, targeting
penal law and criminal procedure to combat various types of illegal
acts using computerised systems, networks and data.
However, the 41-member Council is still facing heavy criticism
after two dozen revisions to its text, most of which dilute the
Convention’s obligations on signing parties, individuals and the
internet industry as the Council tries to find consensus.
A consultant for the Dutch government told the assembly that the
draft gives too much power to law enforcement agencies and has no
system of checks and balances. A US consultant said the draft fails
to protect the privacy of individuals against being spied upon.
Others say the treaty focuses too much on financial measures,
such as copyright infringement, while not taking a stand against
on-line racism.
Other concerns were voiced by organisations such as the World
Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) and the Global
Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC) in response to the 24th draft of
the Treaty, albeit some of their claims were arguably
unfounded.
The 25th draft has taken some of the earlier concerns on board,
clarifying in its foot notes, for example, that the treaty will not
criminalise spam, hyperlinking, deep links, cookies or bots. It
also now provides that for the crime of on-line fraud, states can
provide in their national laws that there must be an intention to
defraud.
One of the major concerns of ISPs in various previous drafts was
a possible obligation for them to collect traffic or content data
from their servers. However, the 25th draft provides that they need
only do so to the extent of their “existing” technical
capability.
The Council’s director of legal affairs said there are unlikely
to be significant amendments before the draft is finalised. The
final text could be approved at its next plenary session in June
2001, after which it will be submitted to the Committee of
Ministers for adoption.
