Original Article: Let’sTalkCyber Newsletter.
Several stakeholders shared their submissions with the Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee expressing their concerns on the future cybercrime convention and sharing their proposals to improve the future convention on cybercrime.
In an open letter to the Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee, more than 45 signatories such as ARTICLE 19, the Electric Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, the CyberPeace Institute, Derechos Digitales, and the CyberTech Accord, urged Member States to withhold support for the treaty. The signatories argue that the draft included unclear and overly broad scope, vague criminalization provisions, intrusive cross-border data collection, lack of meaningful human rights safeguards, and missing protections for good-faith cybersecurity researchers.
Global Digital Partners shared several recommendations to mitigate the risks to human rights and ensure that the convention is compliant with Member States’ obligations to respect human rights. The organization concretely expressed its concern on the inclusion of article 17 on offences relating to other international treaties, as it considers that there is a lack of clarity on which international conventions would apply. Among its recommendations, the organization also proposed to mainstream the gender impacts of cybercrime in the text.
In its submission to the Ad-Hoc Committee, Microsoft expressed its concerns on the revised draft considering that the scope of the convention should be clear and narrowly defined to address only cyber-dependent crimes which can be commonly understood across jurisdictions. Microsoft also pointed out that safeguards should be improved throughout the text, specifically as it pertains to covert surveillance while protections for cybercrime researchers as well as for victims and witnesses should be strengthened.
The CyberPeace Institute considered that the revised version of the text does not reflect on the principles proposed by the multistakeholder community. In this regard, the CyberPeace Institute and the Cybersecurity Tech Accord presented a joint statement “Revisiting the Multistakeholder Manifesto at the 11th Hour, which calls in Member States to prioritise human-centric principles in the Convention.
The Cyber Security Tech Accord regretted that after years of negotiations Member States could not reach consensus on key parts of the convention such as the definitions of cybercrime or the purpose and scope of the convention. The organization also warned about the potential of the convention to weaken global cybersecurity by compromising critical security and criminalizing practices that keep the digital ecosystem secure.
The International Chamber of Commerce recommended to narrowly define the scope of the convention, focusing on cyber-dependent serious criminal offences. Similarly, the Chamber also advocated for making human rights protections and safeguards as a core commitment of the Convention.
Other stakeholders such as Privacy International or the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime also published their concerns on the future convention.
Article originally posted by Angel Alonso Ferrer, from Let’sTalkCyber. Let’sTalkCyber Newsletter is a monthly round-up providing information about past and upcoming meetings, announcements and key decisions, as well as a list of relevant events.
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