Online human rights protect you against cyberbullying. According to a report, 67% of the world’s population uses the Internet; 62% use it for social media interactions. Internet users fall victim to cyber crimes and malicious activities on popular online platforms. Every year we witness a spike in cyber crimes attacking organizations and internet users. Most attacks thrive on data trafficking or stealing private data, deep fakes, ransomware, and phishing.
The United Nations (UN) reported cybercrime is a multi-trillion-dollar business. These crimes have emerged as the global terror honeypot that attracts online scammers, ransomware gangs, cyber terrorists, and extortionists.
To fight the menace, the UN proposed a global cybercrime treaty to balance human rights with growing security issues. The treaty calls for criminalization of cyber crimes by states. These states, in turn, could put the onus on national governments to implement universal online human rights.
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A Dangerous Precedent: The Proposed Global Cybercrime Treaty
The draft global cybercrime treaty unveiled recently, ignited a firestorm of criticism from a broad coalition of digital rights groups, tech companies, and cybersecurity experts. The treaty poses severe threats to fundamental human rights, stifles innovation, and undermines global security.
A core concern is the treaty’s potential to erode privacy protections. It grants governments unchecked power to share personal data without adequate safeguards or oversight. This opens the door to mass surveillance and human rights abuses.
Digital Rights Under Attack if Negotiations Fail
The treaty’s broad definition of cybercrime could be exploited to criminalize legitimate activities like online activism, journalism, and security research. By failing to protect whistleblowers, journalists, and cybersecurity researchers, the treaty chills free speech and endangers the security of digital infrastructure.
This week, the UN Member States are negotiating the proposed cybercrime treaty. They aim to install international cooperation as the precipice for regulating IT and security evidence against cyber crimes. According to the official statement by Freedom Online Coalition, human rights online must be protected as offline rights. This includes providing guaranteed inclusion to exercise the right to freedom of expression and fundamental freedoms. The negotiations will conclude on 9 August. However, ongoing negotiations met with serious differences of opinion.
For instance, a coalition of digital rights groups and tech giants have already united in opposition to the newly proposed global cybercrime treaty. The new treaty has drawn fierce criticism from online human rights activists who questioned the legitimacy of having a framework that throttles digital freedom. The Cybersecurity Tech Accord expressed grave concerns about the current draft convention on law enforcement cooperation against cybercrime. The official statement feared that the instrument to counter cybercrime could soon become a broad UN surveillance treaty to exploit digital freedom. Signatories include global technology companies such as ABB, ARM, Avast, Bitdefender, Cisco, Cloudflare, DELL, DocuSign, GitHub, Hitachi, Lenovo, LinkedIn, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, and others.
Here’s what the members of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord claimed against the draft:
Governments can access personal information and weaponize it.
Negotiations revealed the fear of governments openly flouting data privacy laws, and moving ahead with sharing private information and other sensitive data to criminalize certain online behavior. The fear magnifies if the sharing involves zero legal accountabilities and transparency.
Cybersecurity professionals suddenly come under the lens of suspicion.
The treaty risks exposing cybersecurity researchers and penetration testers to criminal liability, alleges the official statement. While they protect the world’s critical online systems with advanced tactics, cybersecurity professionals could be prosecuted for actions that don’t fit into the charter. While the global security research community had previously raised their concerns about the changes to the treaty, they went unanswered.
Uncontrolled, undefined, and uncertain cybercrime definitions.
The treaty criminalizes the use of information and communications technology systems for activities that could harm the internet users’ community. Similarly, it mentions the breach of Article 14.4. This article protects children against cyberbullying, sexual violence, and abuse. Children unknowingly misusing internet tools to take selfies and share explicit images and videos could find themselves reeling on the wrong side of existing online human rights protection frameworks.
The signatories said, “The adoption of provisions that facilitate the criminalization of children in articles which are supposed to protect them from harm should be unacceptable to everyone.”
Nick Ashton-Hart, head of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord delegation to the negotiations said, “For a UN Convention to facilitate the criminalization of children in articles which are supposed to protect them from harm should be unacceptable to everyone. We call on all member-states to reflect on the advice provided by the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights in its submission to the negotiations to ensure that the Convention does not negatively impact international human rights.”
The serious threat to online human rights also arises from the provision that law enforcement agencies require individuals, IT companies, and networking professionals to turn over their private access data such as passwords, tickets, and credentials. This would expose individuals to new risks if enforcement agencies lose hold of the private data.
In conclusion, the proposed cybercrime treaty is a dangerous step backward for global digital cooperation. It is imperative that governments and stakeholders work together to develop a treaty that upholds human rights, protects innovation, and ensures a secure digital future. Cybersecurity companies should intensify their efforts to protect online human rights in 2024.
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