One of the UN General Assembly appointed in December 2000 ad hoc committee has approved the draft of a new Convention against cybercrime (Draft UN Convention Against Cybercrime) was adopted:
- Media release
- Draft text (EN, not yet available in DE)
The General Assembly is expected to adopt this draft in 2024. The convention would 90 days after the 40th ratification come into force.
The convention is aimed at the respective legislators and would be the first “globally legally binding instrument” to combat cybercrime. The “Cybercrime Convention” (CCCThe Budapest Convention is a Council of Europe agreement that has been ratified by 64 states.
The UN Convention is primarily intended to Enabling mutual legal assistance between countriesthat have not yet concluded mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs). The Electronic Frontier Foundation therefore fearsthat repressive regimes that were previously excluded from MLATs due to their human rights situation, for example, would also be able to benefit from legal assistance. One point of contention at the hearing was apparently also which criminal offenses could be grounds for mutual legal assistance – states such as Russia, China, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan apparently demanded an expansion of the catalog, while the EU and the USA in particular had demanded a restriction to cybercrime and a few other criminal offenses.
Within the scope of the offenses covered, the Convention provides that ratifying states may, inter alia, commit the following Means of coercion can be used:
- ensure certain electronic data, including content and metadata stored or in transit,
- order the disclosure of electronic data if the person or provider concerned has possession or control over it,
- search IT systems and data carriers located on their territory, and
- Intercept and record traffic and content data or force a provider to do the same within the scope of its technical capabilities.
Against this background, it is probably even more difficult to describe the access options under the US Stored Communication Act as contrary to public policy.