These crimes are merely incidentally involving or benefiting from ICT systems without targeting or harming ICTs. So crimes where ICTs are simply a tool that is sometimes used to commit an offense, like the proposals before the UN Ad Hoc Committee, should be excluded from the proposed treaty. These include illegal access to computing systems, illegal interception of communications, data theft, and misuse of devices. Speech Offences Don't Belong in the Proposed Cybercrime TreatyĪs we have previously said, only crimes that target ICTs should be included in the proposed treaty, such as those offenses in which ICTs are the direct objects and instruments of the crimes and could not exist without the ICT systems. įor example, Jordan proposes using the treaty to criminalize “hate speech or actions related to the insulting of religions or States using information networks or websites,” while Egypt calls for prohibiting the “spreading of strife, sedition, hatred or racism.” Russia, jointly with Belarus, Burundi, China, Nicaragua, and Tajikistan, also proposed to outlaw a wide range of vaguely defined speech intending to criminalize protected speech: “the distribution of materials that call for illegal acts motivated by political, ideological, social, racial, ethnic, or religious hatred or enmity, advocacy and justification of such actions, or to provide access to such materials, by means of ICT (information and communications technology),” as well as “humiliation by means of ICT (information and communications technology) of a person or group of people on account of their race, ethnicity, language, origin or religious affiliation.” Others made proposals aimed at racist and xenophobic materials, including Algeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, India, Egypt, Tanzania, Jordan, Russia, Belarus, Burundi, China, Nicaragua, and Tajikistan.
Some Member States put forward, during and ahead of the session, vague proposals aimed at online hate speech, including Egypt, Jordan, Russia, Belarus, Burund i, China, Nicaragua, Tajikistan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Algeria, and Sudan.
The UN Ad Hoc Committee met in Vienna earlier this month for a second round of talks on drafting the new treaty. The UN committee should not make that mistake.
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Including offenses based on harmful speech in the treaty, rather than focusing on core cybercrimes, will likely result in overbroad, easily abused laws that will sweep up lawful speech and pose an enormous menace to the free expression rights of people around the world. These proposals could make it a cybercrime to humiliate a person or group, or insult a religion using a computer, even if such speech would be legal under international human rights law. So it is concerning that some UN Member States are proposing vague provisions to combat hate speech to a committee of government representatives (the Ad Hoc Committee) convened by the UN to negotiate a proposed UN Cybercrime treaty.
But in practice they use these laws to suppress criticism and dissent, and to more broadly clamp down on the freedoms of expression and association. Governments claim they must do so to combat disinformation, “religious, ethnic or sectarian hatred,” “rehabilitation of nazism,” or “the distribution of false information,” among other harms.
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However, across the world, governments routinely abuse cybercrime laws to crack down on human rights by criminalizing speech. Governments should protect people against cybercrime, and they should equally respect and protect people's human rights.
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