Let's go through all the proposed problematic powers, starting with surveillance and censorship:
Special report United Nations negotiators convened this week in Vienna, Austria, to formulate a draft cybercrime treaty, and civil society groups are worried.
"We are here for the fifth session on the negotiations of this new treaty on cybercrime, which will have the potential to drastically redraft criminal law all around the world," said Thomas Lohnninger, executive director of Austria-based tech policy group Epicenter.works, in a media briefing on Thursday about the treaty negotiations.
"It represents a tectonic shift because of its global nature when it comes to the cross border access to our personal information."
The UN Cybercrime Treaty, to the extent it gets adopted, is expected to define global norms for lawful surveillance and legal processes available to investigate and prosecute cybercriminals. And what has emerged so far contemplates [PDF] more than 30 new cybercrime offenses, with few concessions to free speech or human rights.
[...] Katitza Rodriguez, policy director for global privacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explained that current cross-border cybercrime cooperation comes from the Budapest Convention, negotiated in 2001, by member states at the Council of Europe.
Russia, however, Rodriguez said, has objected to the convention for infringing state sovereignty by allowing other nations to investigate cybercrimes in its jurisdiction. So in 2017, Russia proposed negotiating a new treaty, and in 2019 the UN adopted a resolution to do so, backed by Russia, Cambodia, Belarus, China, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria and Venezuela.
The US and members of the European Union opposed the proposal citing concerns about lack of human rights protections. Nonetheless, Rodriguez said, Russia pushed its proposal forward and the UN opened negotiations just days after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Despite criticism by UN members, she said, "by April 2022, many democratic countries that had strongly opposed the draft treaty were actively engaging in the negotiations and pursuing compromise through amendments."
What concerns Rodriguez and other representatives of advocacy groups at the briefing is that the treaty negotiators will compromise on surveillance, privacy, and human rights.
Part of the problem lies in the vague language of the proposed chapters. Rodriguez cited the chapters on international cooperation, which could open the door to bulk data sharing rather than investigations related to specific evidence. Another problem, she said, is the dual criminality provision which could bring state authorities into investigating activities that they do not consider crimes in their own country.
"Unfortunately, instead of progressing towards a human rights-based approach in the negotiation of the treaty, as of now, the current draft is moving away from them," said Rodriguez. "Countries such as India, Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Tonga have even proposed to delete references to international human rights obligations."
Another problematic section, she said, endorses "special investigative techniques." It would make any form of surveillance acceptable, whether it exists currently, like facial recognition, or has yet to be developed.
"This provision also has a very problematic clause, which allows the removal or replacement of data being transmitted over networks," said Rodriguez.
Barbora Bukovská, senior director for law and policy with ARTICLE 19, a UK-based human rights organization, said many of the proposed new crimes are speech-based offenses.
"Those are offenses when you're punished for speaking or doing something online, because this peripherally involves using computer or digital technology," said Bukovská. "And there are extremely vague and overbroad provisions which the states would have to then replicate their national legislation."
One consequence of this, she said, would be to restrict freedom of expression.
"It should be a concern to journalists, human rights defenders, and activists in general because you might be prosecuted under these provisions if adopted in national legislation," she said.
[...] "It must be ensured that government hacking must not be justified in any way," said Fachathaler. "Government hacking is unlike any other form of existing surveillance techniques. It is far more intrusive. It permits remote and secret access to personal devices and data stored on them. It can conduct various forms of real time surveillance. It can manipulate data on devices without leaving any trace."
Fachathaler said the current proposals also lack any remedy for privacy violations and any power to audit investigations to ensure compliance with applicable law.
"We're not against more modern law enforcement techniques because we understand modern law enforcement in response to new developments in this field of cybercrime is of course important and necessary," she said. "But the present draft goes far beyond that simple goal."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 17, @02:38AM (3 children)
Human rights are obsolete!
Russia, Cambodia, Belarus, China, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria and Venezuela. My, my, my, we are keeping such good company these days!!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17, @05:48AM (2 children)
I'm with Russia on this I prefer the illusion of state sovereignty to be stronger than weakened even more.
That way if I escape Russia, Russia can't use this law to get me. Similarly if I escape the USA to Russia, Russia is not required to help the USA get me.
Also we all know in practice such laws will be unevenly applied - the big fish get away, the small fish get fried.
Maybe you can ask Kim Dotcom, Snowden and Assange how they feel about such laws. They already had enough problems with existing laws and enforcement.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Monday April 17, @05:58AM (1 child)
If the law never exists, then Russia won't use that law to get you either. Better to burn it with fire than to implement bad law.
(Score: 3, Informative) by inertnet on Monday April 17, @07:14AM
Well, s/he has it backwards anyway:
For instance, this law would give Russia the right to pursue anyone in the world who expresses negative opinions about their invasion on the internet.
I, for one, do not welcome these authoritarian overlords.