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Leading expert calls for cyber-crime law
Qatar should go for a cyber-crime law, a leading international legal expert on telecommunications, including Internet-related issues, has urged while describing the country’s preparation against cybercrime as one of the best in the region.
“Such a law will eliminate, or at least reduce, questions that will arise concerning the application of traditional criminal law to Internet or computer-based misconduct,” Craig J Blakeley, founder of Alliance Law Group, Virginia, US, told Gulf Times in an online interview.
He was in Qatar recently, for the first time, to speak at the Doha Information Security Conference and to meet with the Qatar-Computer Emergency Response Team (Q-CERT) of ictQATAR on issues relating to cyber crime.
Blakeley, active in the Middle East since 1995, observed that a cybercrime law will provide a more effective mechanism for deterring Internet or computer-based misconduct in the first place by eliminating the uncertainty as to whether or not specific types of misconduct constitute crimes.
In its broadest sense, cybercrime is defined as any type of misconduct or crime that can be committed or assisted through the use of a computer or the Internet.
Though normally laws are not adopted until a problem arises, the attorney and consultant suggested that in the case of cybercrime, it is important to be ‘proactive,’ rather than ‘reactive.’
Given the worldwide nature of the Internet, cyber criminals tend to go where the cyber-crime laws are weakest or nonexistent, he cautioned, while pointing out that cyber crime reduces public trust in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).
“Trust is critical to the utilisation of those technologies, which at the same time are important as Qatar seeks to develop a balanced economy, one which creates the opportunity for growth that is not based only upon its significant hydrocarbon resources,” Blakeley said.
Particularly in a country such as Qatar, which is experiencing a period of very rapid growth, he believes that enactment of a cybercrime law is an important component in an overall cyber security strategy and one which will contribute significantly to the country’s e-readiness.
“I understand that there are current laws in Qatar that can be applied to various types of Internet crimes,” the expert observed.
For example, normally a law that prohibits fraud can be applied to fraudulent conduct that takes place over the Internet.
“And there are laws that seek to regulate some types of Internet-based conduct, such as the draft e-commerce law, which I understand is likely to be enacted in the near future,” he said.
Blakeley believes that there are gaps in the current legal structure as it relates to cybercrime. For example, there are certain types of misconduct that only became possible with the invention of the computer and the Internet, such as e-mail spam.
“We are all familiar with the enormous amounts of Leading expert calls for cyber-crime law
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