Late last year, the United Kingdom, France, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and dozens more nations signed the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime, a treaty ostensibly intended to improve global cooperation to fight crimes taking place over computer systems. Canada joined them this summer. The United States remains a notable exception and says it is still reviewing the treaty.
Three nations have since ratified it, and the treaty will enter into force 90 days after 40 states do so. As FIRE has long warned, the treaty opens the door to greater violations of free expression online — and new cybercrime bills popping up around the world show why.
...
The treaty purports to improve international cooperation in addressing crimes taking place using computer systems — but cooperation is not limited to specific online criminal acts like fraud or phishing. Instead, the treaty pushes nations to share personal data that other nations request about individuals accused of committing “serious” crimes.
But there’s an important question here. What constitutes a “serious” crime? The treaty does little to define it other than clarifying that it’s a crime carrying at least a four-year prison sentence as a punishment. For billions of people around the world, speech is a crime that warrants a long prison term.
...
The likely outcome here is obvious: The treaty will streamline unfree countries’ involvement with other unfree countries’ repression and pressure freer ones into helping, too. And it can all take place confidentially, without the knowledge of the public or even those being targeted . . .
And as though existing national laws punishing political expression aren’t enough, the treaty could even incentivize governments to enact harsher penalties on expressive acts. After all, if you’d like other nations to assist you in punishing your critics on the internet, you’ll want to ensure their expression qualifies for inclusion under the treaty’s definition of “serious crimes.”
...
There are, no doubt, serious transnational crimes taking place on the internet that require international cooperation. And there are ways we can improve cross-border collaboration to fight actual crime. But this treaty risks emboldening states that already seek to crush out online dissent, giving them more tools to do so, and enlisting freer states in this campaign.
And, perhaps most concerningly, this treaty may exacerbate what is already a uniquely dangerous era for free speech online. Every day it seems nations are pursuing new limitations on people’s ability to express themselves online, passing privacy-threatening age-gating restrictions, and seeking to gut government critics’ ability to speak anonymously. It’s more urgent than ever that democratic nations seek to reverse this corrosive trend rather than deepen it.
...