NEWS | Wednesday, 29 October 2008

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

EU ministers agree upon platform to fight cybercrime

Matthew Vella
EU Home Affairs and Justice Ministers have agreed to boost the fight against internet crime, by strengthening the co-operation between law enforcement authorities.
As such there is no clear definition of ‘cybercrime’, which up to now has only covered terrorism and child pornography.
The conclusions reached at the latest council meeting in Luxembourg called for a European alert ‘platform’ to be set up to deal with cybercrime. It will forge a common practice on regard to tracing, acquisition, compilation and storage of data, search and seizure of computer data.
The ministers also called upon Europol to use the platform to collect and centralise information about offences noted on the Internet, supplied by national platforms, which will then be analysed to determine whether the offences are European or extra-national in nature, and hence need to be notified to the European platform.
The Ministers also agreed to build and develop a system to share of information on convictions, known as ECRIS, that will give law enforcement authorities access to the records on convictions of certain persons.
According to the justice ministry, the system agreed to at the meeting is not a centralised criminal records database.
The ECRIS decision aims in particular to ensure that information can be transmitted by electronic means, and it lays down the conditions and format for data exchange. Member States will be fully responsible for the management of their own criminal records, but transfers of information will be facilitated by means of a common data exchange format.
A pilot project is currently being conducted by 14 Member States with a view to interconnecting their criminal records.
ECRIS is expected to include all form of criminal record, even including offences such as ‘insult of the State, Nation or State symbols’, ‘insult or resistance to a representative of public authority’, and ‘withdrawal of a hunting or fishing license.
Ministers also agreed on the facilitation of the recognition and enforcement of maintenance obligation decisions. This will improve the situation of all those family members who are suffering injustices because they do not have the possibility and the means to seek the enforcement of maintenance due to them that could have been granted in another Member State.
This proposal will be implemented by means of a system of cooperation established between competent authorities of each Member State which cooperation will lead to the facilitation of recovery of such maintenance claims.

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.