Cybercrime Treaty Could Be Used to Go After Cyberespionage Emilio Godoy - Inter Press Service
go to original October 4, 2013

MEXICO CITY - Governments of countries that engage in large-scale electronic espionage, like the United States, and companies that develop spying software could theoretically face legal action for violating the Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention, adopted in Budapest in 2001 and in force since 2004, is the first international treaty seeking to address Internet and computer crime, and has a provision that aims to protect the right of privacy of data communication from unauthorised interception.

The treaty, also known as the Budapest Convention, requires member states to criminalise four kinds of conduct against confidentiality or the integrity and availability of computer systems or data: illegal access, illegal interception, data and system interference, and misuse of devices for the purpose of committing these offences.

These are precisely the practices engaged in by the U.S., British and other governments, according to documents leaked to the media in June by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.

Cyber surveillance “violates the Convention, and perpetrators can be sued” under the Cybercrime Convention Committee, Lorena Pichardo, a law school professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS.

The Convention was adopted by the Council of Europe, which was set up to promote democracy and protect human rights and the rule of law in Europe. But the treaty has also been signed by non-member states, like Canada, the United States and Japan. The United States ratified it in 2006.

Read the rest at Inter Press Service

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