Ninety-four civil society organisations from around the world sent a letter to the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland, on Tuesday 3 April, calling upon him to ensure “transparent and meaningful civil society participation” in Council of Europe talks on the proposal for a second additional protocol to the convention on cybercrime (“Budapest Convention”).
The new international text aims to establish provisions for a more effective and simplified legal cooperation system as well as for allowing direct cooperation with service providers in other jurisdictions on cross-border access to data.
Work in preparation for the protocol began in September 2017 within the Cybercrime Convention Committee (T-CY) of the Council of Europe. The T-CY brings together the states that are party to the Budapest Convention as well as observer countries and ad hoc nations.
Under the coordination of European Digital Rights (EDRi) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the letter invites the Council of Europe to maintain its “exemplary history of transparency and inclusion” and to abide by its “intention for close interaction with civil society” throughout the process. Exceptions made to the publication of documents must be justified on a case by case basis and examined internally, they say.
In addition, the organisations call on the T-CY to develop a detailed plan for online debriefing sessions after each drafting meeting, both plenary and drafting, and to invite civil society as experts to the meetings, as is customary in all other Council of Europe Committee sessions.
Given the American CLOUD Act (see EUROPE 11990) and future legislative proposals on electronic evidence (see EUROPE 11978), the organisations urge the T-CY to engage proactively and in a timely manner with civil society. The protocol should be finalised by December 2019. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)