Octopus Conference on Cybercrime, Strasbourg, 11-13 July 2018
Opening session, Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 14h00 – 14h45, Hemicycle
Speaking points Jan Kleijssen
[draft version 3 July 2018 / Alexander Seger]
Note: the opening panel also includes:
- Ursula Owusu-Ekuful (Minister of Communications, Ghana)
- Marcela Ordonez Fernandez (Minister Plenipotentiary, Coordinator of Crime Prevention, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Colombia)
- Bessolé René Bagoro (Ministre de la Justice, des Droits Humains et de la Promotion Civique, Garde des Sceaux de Burkina Faso)
- Ronald Kay Warsal (Minister for Justice and Communication Services, Vanuatu)
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Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
Welcome to the Octopus Conference 2018.
It is great to see that once again so many cybercrime experts have come to Strasbourg from all corners of the globe. We have been holding this conference since 2004. In terms of numbers this is the largest one so far.
We have several high level officials from Africa, the Asia/Pacific region and Latin America at this conference and some of them will share with us their experience and expectations already in the opening session.
Special thanks to Estonia, Japan, Monaco, the United Kingdom and the USA for co-funding this event.
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The last Octopus Conference in November 2016 marked the 15th anniversary of the Budapest Convention.
On that occasion Andorra became the 50th State Party to this treaty. We now have reasons to celebrate as ten more countries have since joined the Convention.
Less than two weeks ago, Morocco became the 60th Party, and in the weeks before that, Argentina, Cabo Verde and the Philippines deposited their instruments of accession. So welcome and congratulations to all new Parties!
With each new Party, the Convention becomes more effective.
The workshop this week on the Global State of Cybercrime Legislation will show that we are on a very good path in that many more countries have enacted legislation in line with the Budapest Convention and may sooner or later also accede to it.
Through our Cybercrime Programme Office in Romania we are able to help countries to bring their domestic legislation in line with this treaty and to strengthen their criminal justice capacities to engage in international cooperation. Our capacity building programmes have been further expanding in partnership with the European Union. The USA has also become an important donor.
One of the workshops this week will discuss how we can further improve the impact of capacity building programmes to ensure that funds invested are well spent.
At the last Octopus Conference the Secretary General of the Council of Europe expressed his hope that the 15th anniversary may be considered a turning point regarding the Budapest Convention in that the treaty may reach up to the clouds.
And indeed, in the weeks afterwards, in February 2017, the Parties to the Convention adopted a “Guidance Note on Production Orders for Subscriber Information” regarding situations where a service provider is offering a service in a Party without being in that Party.
The very fact that it was possible to reach agreement on a matter that is touching upon complex questions of jurisdiction was a positive signal for what was to follow:
In June 2017, the Cybercrime Convention Committee decided to commence the preparation of an additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention on enhanced international cooperation and access to data on cloud servers.
Work is now well underway and the primary focus so far has been on rendering mutual legal assistance more efficient. The most difficult issues are up next, namely, the questions of direct cooperation with a service provider in another jurisdiction and of extending a search to a computer in another jurisdiction.
These options will be necessary but they also need to be carefully framed by rule of law safeguards. It is therefore very timely that a full-day workshop tomorrow will be dedicated to consultations on the protocol with data protection, civil society and industry experts.
In this connection I would like to inform you of an important development regarding the protection of personal data: the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe a few weeks ago adopted the amending Protocol to Convention 108. Convention 108+ will be opened for signature on [10 October 2018]. The current Convention 108 now has 53 Parties, the latest being Cabo Verde and Mexico.
Being a Party to both, the Budapest and the Data Protection Convention obviously facilitates the sharing of data across borders also for criminal justice purposes, in particular where private sector entities such as service providers are involved.
In the Octopus Conference this week we will discuss a number of other topics that are at the forefront today such as:
· cyberattacks against democracy and interference with elections;
· the link between cybercrime and human rights, including recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights;
· the question of access to WHOIS information which requires urgent answers;
· the problem of cyberviolence where we see very negative developments. Enhancing synergies between the Budapest Convention, the Lanzarote Convention on the Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse of Children and the Istanbul Convention on Violence against Women and Family Violence would seem a part of the response.
And will discuss a topic that will be at the forefront in the future, namely the question of cybercrime and artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning raise fundamental questions on the future of humanity and this is why several Committees of the Council of Europe are now dealing with it.
The Octopus panel on Friday afternoon is to raise awareness of the issues involved among experts on cybercrime. Future Octopus Conferences and probably also the Cybercrime Convention Committee will then need to deal with the ramifications of artificial intelligence in much greater detail.
Dear friends,
This is the eleventh Octopus Conference on Cybercrime. The three main messages are the same as those of the previous ten conferences: Cooperate. Cooperate. Cooperate.
The conference this week is another unique opportunity to do so. Make good use of it.
Thank you.