The US digital rights group EFF is describing the latest UN Cybercrime Treaty draft as “a significant step backward” and a case of “perilously broadening its scope beyond the cybercrimes specifically defined in the convention, encompassing a long list of non-cybercrimes.”
This “dance” – with some reported progress, for things to then again get worse – is not exactly new in the now lengthy process of negotiating the document, amid criticism not only from observers among the involved rights non-profits, but also UN member-countries.
EFF is also convinced that these latest developments are not accidental, i.e., a case of oversight, but rather an essentially purposeful wrong step that diminishes chances of the treaty, once/if adopted being the result of proper consensus.
When it all started, the Treaty was presented as a “standardized” manner for the world to combat cybercrime.
What has been happening in the meanwhile, though, is a seemingly never-ending stream of additions and expansions of the document’s original powers, to the point where it has now, in the words of EFF, “morphed into an expansive surveillance treaty.”
A major concern is what EFF calls possible overreach as national and international investigations are carried out. And instead of improving on these concerns, the new draft is said to have held on to past controversial rules, only to add even more.
This time, it’s in the form of “allowing states to compel engineers or employees to undermine security measures, posing a threat to encryption.”
Hellbound and Down 
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