Strasbourg, 28/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Council of Europe has released the draft version of a convention on crime in cyberspace, in order to allow enterprises and all other interested parties to address their comments to experts responsible for negotiations, before the final adoption of this text by the end of the year. Its adoption by the Committee of Ministers and its opening for signature should be as early as autumn 2001. This text will thus be the first international treaty to take an interest, from the point of view of criminal law and law enforcement procedures, in the different forms of criminal activity aimed at cyperspace systems, networks and data, including throughout the Internet.
Several States which do not belong to the Council of Europe (South Africa, Canada, United Stats and Japan) are taking part in the work of drawing up this convention.
The text provides for the Member States to take the provisions required for incriminating computer piracy, the unlawful interception of data, interference with computer systems, fraud and forgery. It also especially bans on-line child pornography, including the holding of downloaded documents of this kind, and the reproduction and diffusion of works protected by intellectual copyright. As far as law enforcement is concerned, the contracting parties will have the obligation to empower their relevant authorities to carry out computer searches and seize computer data, and require data-subjects to produce data under their control. The interception of data transmitted through networks, including telecommunications networks, is under review. The international nature of the kind of criminal activities targeted makes it necessary to have appropriate police and judicial cooperation, and the draft convention provides for a cooperation mechanism that mainly concerns the safeguarding and transmission of evidence as well as the locating of on-line subjects. A network of 24 hours/day, 7 days/week would be set in place to allow real international investigations to be carried out. The other traditional forms of judicial cooperation and extradition procedures would also be applicable within the framework of this convention.
The full text of the project may be found on the website: http: //conventions.coe.int/treaty/fr/projets/cybercrime.htm