UN cybercrime text faces new scrutiny from tech firms, rights groups

UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN member states opened a two-week meeting on Monday seeking to finalise an international treaty on the fight against cybercrime, a text strongly opposed by an unlikely alliance of human rights groups and big technology companies.

The “United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime” originated in 2017 when Russian diplomats sent the world body´s secretary-general a letter outlining the initiative.

Two years later, and despite US and European opposition, the General Assembly created an intergovernmental committee tasked with drawing up such a treaty. “We´re at the entrance of the harbor, and on Friday August 9, we´ll be docking,” said committee chairwoman Faouzia Boumaiza Mebarki at Monday´s opening session.

Following seven previous negotiating sessions, “divergences still remain,” she noted, while criticism has also continued to mount. While the revised draft includes “some welcome improvements,” according to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, concerns remain “about significant shortcomings, with many provisions failing to meet international human rights standards.”