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Ireland: EU draft cyber crime treaty spells trouble

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 18:32:31 -0400 From: David Banisar <banisar@privacy.org> Subject: Ireland: EU draft cyber crime treaty spells trouble To: Global Internet Liberty Campaign <gilc-plan@gilc.org> Send reply to: gilc-plan@gilc.org

-------------------- Original Message Follows -------------------- http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2000/1020/fin20.htm

Irish Times

Friday, October 20, 2000

EU draft cyber crime treaty spells trouble ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --

NET RESULTS: All the hard work the Government and private industry have done to turn the Republic into one of the more attractive European locations for technology companies and electronic business risks being lost because of a Council of Europe draft treaty on cyber crime.

As it now stands, the draft Convention on Cyber Crime introduces many of the elements of Britain's notoriously oppressive Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill. This set of laws has been condemned almost unanimously by British business, and privacy and civil rights groups.

At issue is the degree of power on surveillance it hands to law enforcement agencies to monitor company e-mail and phone calls without a warrant, its restrictions on the use of encryption by businesses and individuals, and the guilty-'til-proven-innocent nature of some of its provisions.

For months, debate has raged in parliament and elsewhere over the Bill and the British government has been forced to backtrack on several of its provisions. The law is still so repressive that it is expected to be challenged immediately in the European Court of Human Rights.

By contrast, the Republic's set of laws governing e-commerce gives strong and specific protections for the use of encryption, while taking a light regulatory approach overall. Both international business and privacy advocacy groups have positively and publicly noted the restraint of the Irish approach.

The Convention on Cyber Crime could end up over-riding the pro-privacy and supportive e-commerce environment that exists as a result of our E-commerce Act. According to the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, an international coalition of civil liberties and human rights groups, the treaty could require Internet service providers to examine private e-mail messages and mandate that Internet companies retain records of customer activity.

The campaign is also worried that the treaty expands surveillance powers unacceptably, without safeguards on privacy and civil rights, and could give law enforcement bodies access to encryption keys.

In a statement, the campaign said the convention as it stands is "contrary to well established norms for the protection of the individual, that it improperly extends the police authority of national governments, that it will undermine the development of network security techniques, and that it will reduce government accountability in future law enforcement conduct".

Although the E-commerce Act dealt with some areas of relevance, the Department of Justice must design a set of laws to cover cyber crime, and the current process in Europe will influence those regulations. Laws on cyber crime can either dovetail with the e-commerce laws or introduce a punitive and damaging regulatory climate similar to that in Britain.

Given that the Government knows full well it is benefiting from international business concerns about the British situation, it would be ironic if we were to bring in the same environment, either through new laws of our own making or via a European treaty.

The Republic should lead the way in opposing the existing draft treaty and concerned individuals and businesses should mount a strong lobbying effort at both the national and European level. For more information see www.gilc.org or www.epic.org.

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