Intellectual Property Law

The European Union?s Work Strategies and Practical Measures against Cybercrime

By Martha L. Arias

The steady increase of cybercrime with transnational implications concerns the European Union member states. For this reason, the European Council concerted some work strategies and practical measures against cybercrime in November 2008. These strategies and measures seek join action by member states in the sphere of police and judicial co-operation against cybercrime, in an effort to combat transnational organized crime and computer crimes in the European Union. This article briefs the European Council''s Work Strategies and Practical Measures against cybercrime adopted in November 2008.

The European Council stated that "the development of a comprehensive programme against cybercrime appears to be the most appropriate working method at Union level if we are to find solutions to all the issues which arise on the subject, or which are likely to arise in the near future, and to monitor their implementation." Thus, in 2008, the European Council adopted work strategies and practical measures against cybercrime, taking into consideration principles of the European Convention on Cybercrime.

Work Strategies & Measures

1. The purpose of adopting these strategies and measures was to effectively combat the multiple crimes committed by means of electronic networks. The Council was mainly concerned with child pornography and other forms of sexual violence; terrorism, as defined by Decision 2002/475/ JAI of June 13, 2002; threats and large scale attacks to electronic networks; and other traditional Internet crimes such as "identity fraud, identity theft, fraudulent sales, financial offenses, illicit trading on the Internet, particularly narcotics and arms dealing."

2. The Council considered that an effective response to cybercrime is obtained by adopting three basic measures: (a) strengthening of partnership between the public and the private sector to detect and prevent criminal activities, (b) improving knowledge and training among authorities involved in the fight against cybercrime in Europe; particularly, setting up a network of Head of police against cybercrime, and (c) reinforcing technical and international co-operation with countries that most actively deal with cybercrime.

3. Therefore, the Council invited the member states and the European Commission to introduce technological measures to combat cybercrime. Some of these measures were considered short term such as setting up a platform to report criminal acts committed on the Internet, drafting a co-operation agreement between law enforcement agencies and private operators, describing what is identity fraud on the Internet, in compliance with domestic laws, setting up national frameworks and best practices regarding cyberpatrols, which are the modern tools against Internet crime, enabling data exchange at an European scale and according to domestic laws, resorting to join investigation and enquiry teams, and finding solutions to electronic roaming and the anonymity of prepaid telecommunication products. Medium term measures proposed included exchanging mechanism available to block or close down child pornography sites in the member states, facilitating remote searches under national laws and enabling investigators to have rapid access to information under the acquiescence of the host country, and providing temporary definitions of offenses, categories and statistical indicators to encourage collection of comparable data regarding cybercrime.

Practical Measures between Law Enforcement Authorities and the Private Sector

1. Law enforcement authorities and the private sectors should be encouraged to engage in operational and strategic information exchange to identify emerging forms of cybercrime. Also, law enforcement authorities should constantly inform service providers about cybercrime trends. The private sector and law enforcement authorities should assist each other with education, training and other support services.

2. Member states should create a standard system of information exchange between law enforcement authorities and the private sector.

3. Member states should adopt a standard request form from law enforcement. As a minimum, requests from law enforcement should be in writing, in electronic format, and contain the following information: reference number, reference to legal basis, the specific data requested, time zone, and information to verify the source of the request.

4. The law enforcement and private sector should agree on a system for prioritization of law enforcement requests.

5. Law enforcement and the private sector should design their co-operation taking mindful of the costs involved in creating and responding to requests.

As of January 2010, some of these measures were fully implement in the European Union. For instance, the telecommunication roaming issue was resolved in 2009. A system of data exchange between member states was also implemented. These advances are a good indicator that the European Union will soon accomplish a unified enforcement system against cybercrime.

Full post as published by IBLS Internet Law Blog on January 10, 2010 (boomark / email).