Brussels, 30/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Parliament will examine the report by Charlotte Cederschiold (Sweden, EPP-ED) on the Commission's communication on a strategy aimed at creating a more secure information society, enhancing the security of information infrastructures and combating cyber-crime.
In this communication, presented on 26 January last, the Commission considers that, in the short-term, there needs to be a Community instrument to enable Member States to have effective sanctions in view of combating child-pornography on the Internet. In the longer-term, the Commission would like to submit proposals aimed at further aligning systems of material criminal law in the field of high-tech crime. It also intends promoting, at national level, the creation of specialised police units to combat computer delinquency, there where these do not yet exist, support appropriate technical training measures for authorities responsible for the implementation of laws and encourage European actions relating to information security.
For Ms. Cederschiold, there must first be a coherent strategy at EU level that preserves the Internet as free market worldwide. The Commission must also drawn up common proposals in view of settling conflicts of competencies between Member States and aligning criminal legislation, so as to get rid of the obstacles to prosecutions and the implementation of sanctions. In order more specifically to combat the trafficking in human beings, money laundering and child-pornography, as well as what may rightly be called "crime using advanced technologies", the rapporteur thus suggests handing the Commission the task of proposing all the measures of a legislative nature that seem to it appropriate.
Parliament would like the setting up of a Community forum on cyber-crime which would, notably, bring together bodies charged with implementing the law, telecommunications operators, civil liberties organisations, consumer representatives and the authorities responsible for the protection of data, so as to iron out certain existing problems. The aim of the forum would be to raise public awareness to the risks raised by criminals on the Internet and elaborate effective instruments to combat crime. Ms. Cederschiold would also like a Conference of legal experts of Member States and candidate countries to be convened to examine the problem of cyber-crime.
The report also regards as essential encouraging European and technical research into protection and prevention, especially in the field of encryption and filtering. At international level, it recommends urging Member States and candidate countries to co-ordinate their efforts within the different international fora (Council of Europe, G8, the Lyon Group, OECD and United Nations) so as to amend the Council of Europe's draft convention on cyber-crime in which the United States, Canada, Japan and South Africa are also associated, in view of establishing a balance between the need to respect and preserve the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens. It calls on Member States to immediately amend the draft convention, integrating an accession and withdrawal clause that preserves the rights of the Union, as defined by the Court of Justice.
Finally, Ms. Cederschiold calls for a broad dialogue to be initiated on strengthening exchanges with the United States in view of narrowing the gap between the different approaches to combating cyber-crime. She considers that the transatlantic dialogue should be improved on questions of a legislative nature and wants to see an extension of the possibility of delegating EU representatives to American organisations of a non-official nature and which combat cyber-crime, such as the Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security (PCIS), and that the United States should in turn be invited to delegate representatives to corresponding EU bodies.