Council of Europe Cyber Crime Convention: Guidelines for Formal Cooperation between Law Enforcers and ISP’s on the anvil
The CyberCrime Convention 2008 in Europe is set to come up with a bunch of guidelines to help formalize cooperation between Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) and Law Enforcement Agencies. These guidelines will be completed during the Cybercrime Conference underway in Strasbourg, France and offered to member countries for use. The convention came by these guidelines while working on ways to speed up response times in reacting to online crime.
The move is timely as until now there was no laid down procedure to aid officials involved in fighting internet crime. This lacuna majorly hampered cybercrime investigations. In fact, online criminals were taking advantage of such loopholes all this while. They felt safe in using the remoteness and anonymity offered by the internet.
COE Guidelines: Both Timely and Welcome
Investigating authorities would welcome these guidelines heartily. Faced with such hurdles as rules and procedures that change across national boundaries, such a system would put to rest a large part of their worries.
This brings relief to Service Providers too. During the course of investigations, they walk a tight rope whilst aiding authorities and respecting the privacy of their customers. They feared that the Convention will cast in iron what was informally expected of them until now.
ISP’s also feared that businesses from the music and movie industries would have a vested interest in pushing for tighter control in providing access to online users. This would serve their purpose particularly well as the onus of blanking out sites offering bogus wares on the internet will fall on the lap of service providers.
Relief for ISP’s, in particular
Before the Convention, the ISP’s were also rightly cringing about the considerable strain that demands for information caused on their resources. It could potentially bust operations of businesses that act as small subsidiaries to ISP majors, they revealed. To avoid this, they asked to be reimbursed for expenses incurred during an investigation.
The convention addressed their concerns by laying down rules to streamline data requests from investigating agencies; a big departure from demanding ISP’s to submit whatever information they had. The convention agreed on a format to be used while asking for such information. In case of international investigations, such a request was decided to be routed through a government channel available day-and-night. It also called for regular trainings to be undertaken by service providers to ensure smooth cooperation between the sides.
The CyberCrime convention insisted, however, that these are merely guidelines and not rules to be etched into law books. These guidelines will be on offer to member countries who would be encouraged to follow them.
Photo by: Inyucho
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