United Nations Conference on Cybercrime
Definition and regulation of cybercrime activities under international law
Intense technological development during the twentieth century has shortened distances and actually made the world look smaller. Easiness and speed of data transmission seem to be limitless: it is possible to connect to the World Wide Web from anywhere in a matter of seconds using just a cell phone; information may be transmitted throughout the World by anyone; data that used to be detained by few, such as satellite pictures, is now openly shared. Every office, private or governmental, every middle class home, every school, every lab, every bank, every police station, is now equipped with a computer and an internet connection hence the natural need to control properly such a crucial part of our daily lives, any improvement in society needs a parallel improvement in what sustains it: our technology.
The versatility and speed of computers made our society largely dependent on information technology, accumulating several functions from personal communication to large financial transactions. It did not take long for the possibilities of online invasion and control of data to call the attention of criminal behaviour. Unfortunately, no legal system was ready for this revolution, nations took years to adapt and renew their laws in order to deal with this new type of abuse and have not yet established proper mechanisms able to fulfil the needs of security and simultaneously guarantee the respect to the rights to free communication and privacy. Once more, we face the dichotomy between freedom and protection. As a matter of fact, this area grows even more nebulous once we consider all the necessary rigorous analysis, even the basic concepts are not well established and need discussing. Determining what is necessary to ensure peace and what is a threat to freedom is just the first step to effectively build a culture of freedom and peace.
The potential transnational nature of cybercrimes demands global cooperation, since computer networks do not respect borders, permitting criminal offences to be committed abroad and leaving the doubt of under which jurisdiction the crime has been committed, even whether it may or may not be considered a crime if there is no law prohibiting such action in one of the involved legal systems. Even though great advances have been achieved in regional and national levels, they still differ largely from nation to nation in very basic topics, such as what should be considered a cybercrime, hampering the construction of an effective global effort towards prevention and prosecution.
The United Nations Conference on Cybercrime will be responsible to debate this topic demanding multiple types of knowledge, from legal details to political barriers and some notions of computer networking. It will be an opportunity to explore this new and challenging area that rises from the merge of social research and the frontiers of modern technology, measuring how far individual rights may go without compromising the community’s integrity.
- US Department of State – Cybercrime Taskforce
- Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime Treaty Office
- UNODC Workshop on Computer Wrongdoing Summary
- Mr. Paulo Ferrari
- Mrs. Maíra Carvalho
- Mr. João Paulo Oliveira
- Mr. Celso Cantanhêde
- Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime
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- Definition and regulation of cybercrime activities under international law
