Viewers may remember the public outrage that was stirred exactly a year ago when a video went viral of a minor in her high school uniform engaging in a sex act.
It was part of a disturbing trend that was starting to take form where females were being exposed and exploited in which is referred to as revenge porn.
That incident sparked a conversation on how to successfully prosecute the person who maliciously leaks these types of videos. Since then, the government has partnered with civil society to come up with draft legislation to address such acts. The Government is now in possession of a draft cybercrime bill that it is trying to finalize. It is seeking the advice and expertise of the Council of Europe to make the bill as comprehensive as possible so that it can lead to the successful prosecution of cybercriminals.
The Council of Europe is currently in Belize, and they are partnering with the Forum of the Presidents of Legislative Bodies of Central America and the Caribbean Basin - known as FOPREL. Both of these organizations are now a part of an advisory mission to harmonize legislation on cybercrime and electronic evidence. They are hosting a 4-day workshop for the relevant government agencies to review the draft cybercrime legislation to bring it up to international standards.
The Ministry of National Security and the Speaker of the House of Representatives hosted an opening ceremony for this advisory mission at the Biltmore Plaza Hotel this morning, and 7News attended. We asked the facilitators to discuss the issue of cybercrime, and the challenges of trying to prosecute it. Here's what they told us on the topic:
George Lovell - CEO, Ministry of National Security
"There have been a number of work that we have been doing over the past few months. Cyberbullying has been one of the ones that the Special Envoy and a number of people were very concerned about. And we had seen it fit for us to try and get that portion of the legislation to Cabinet, and to have that pass in a short timeframe. And if you all could recall, I think it was in the latter part of last year, we had moved forward with those kinds of initiatives. Cabinet was able to approve draft legislation that was presented to them. While we were doing that, we realized that there are other things going [on] in the cyberspace, and we decided that we needed to come with more comprehensive cybercrime legislation. We had tasked our task force to put together some draft bills which will have to go to Cabinet. They're still working on that. But, while we were doing that, we had already gotten a commitment from GLACY+ and the Council of Europe to assist Belize in putting together cybercrime legislation."
"What is unique about what they do is they go from country to country, and it is said that within 4 days, they can give us a draft cybercrime legislation. I still want to see that done. I'm looking forward to seeing that because if that is done, it means then, in a very short timeframe, Belize will be able to have its cybercrime legislation on the books."
Matteo Lucchetti - Mission Leader, Council of Europe
"Council of Europe is the organization that is holding the Budapest Convention. The Budapest Convention is the international reference treaty in this field, which was drafted in 2,001, and so far, has been acceded [to] by 64 countries all over the world. Another 10 are on their way."
"The Budapest Convention gives a number of definitions of what are the conducts that need to be criminalized. So, what are the basic definitions of cybercrime, and all the countries that are party to it agreed with these definitions. We have crimes related to illegal access to computer systems, crimes related to illegal interception of computer data. We have crimes related to computer-related forgery or computer-related fraud. We have crimes related to online child sexual exploitation. There is also the definition of crimes related to intellectual property violations. This is, let's say, the common set of definitions that all countries have. And then each country can then decide to add other articles that are not covered by the Budapest Convention."
Reporter
"Everywhere that you're trying to fight cybercrime, one of the biggest challenges is establishing a digital footprint for the offenders because they use the internet to hide. Have you folks from the Council of Europe come up with ways to identify the criminals, in order to gather the necessary evidence?"
Matteo Lucchetti
"Well actually, the Council of Europe is not just promoting the harmonization of national legislation because, in the end, the national legislation without implementation is just a piece of paper. So, the Council of Europe is supporting the whole process."
"Once the legislation is in place, the Council of Europe has this program of capacity building that we are developing, that we have been developing and that I am managing, which is called GLACY+, Global Action on Cybercrime. And this is related to building capacities of criminal authorities, so law enforcement -so police, magistrates, prosecutors, judges, on these very topics. And to do this, we've also partnered with INTERPOL, which is deploying part of our program on our behalf. We try to maximize the delivery of technical courses for law enforcement to deal with such topics darknet or visual currencies because this is what the criminals are now using to hide in the darknet."
The workshop continues tomorrow and ends on Thursday. The representative from the Council of Europe told us that he has taken a look at Belize's draft cybercrime bill, and there are few areas of improvement that they can advise the government on.
Email
Print