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G8 members target cybercrime
By SARAH KENNEDY
Globe and Mail
http://www.globeandmail.ca/

Tuesday, May 14 ? Online Edition, Posted at 6:29 PM EST
Countries must step up their efforts to combat high-tech crime, justice 
ministers from the G8 agreed Tuesday.

Citing the potential of modern technology, such as mobile phones and the 
Internet, to be used as tools for crime and terrorism, justice and interior 
ministers from the Group of Eight called for heightened co-operation between 
nations to curb cybercrime.

"The Internet has been used by terrorists to communicate and plan attacks," the 
ministers' said in a statement.

As the two-day meeting of G8 justice and interior ministers' wrapped up Tuesday 
in Mont-Tremblant, Que., Justice Minister Martin Cauchon and Solictor-General 
Lawrence MacAulay urged member states to develop systems that will help police 
trace criminal and terrorist threats.

Criminals are using the internet to plan and commit crimes and in doing so they 
leave an electronic trail behind, Mr. Cauchon said.

Ottawa will work co-operatively with industry to find a way to track and record 
dialing data and call routing.

The G8 bureaucrats also proposed creating another international databank to 
assist victims of child pornographers and aid in apprehending their abusers.

Success in exposing pornography rings relies heavily upon further co-operation 
between states, Mr. Cauchon said Tuesday.

"When providers [Internet service providers] fall outside the investigators' 
territorial jurisdiction investigators will need help from their counterparts 
in other jurisdictions," the G8 ministers said.

The proposed effort to track cybercrime has raised concerns about privacy.

"We have privacy legislation in place so there is some level of confidence that 
there won't be abuses," Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa professor 
specializing in Internet law, told globeandmail.com. "As the sector shifts more 
towards security it moves away from privacy. And privacy law includes 
exceptions for law enforcement purposes."

So far, details on how the child-pornography databank will operate are sparse.

The threat of terrorists using chemical, biological and nuclear weapons was 
also tackled at the meeting. The ministers' closing statement re-enforced that 
countries must be prepared in the event of such an attack.

"The threat of biological and chemical weapons is real," Mr. MacAulay said 
Tuesday. "We must be prepared for the unexpected."

The issue of terrorist financing was also addressed during the conference.

Mr. MacAulay said all G8 countries are on-side in the effort to track terrorist 
financing in cyberspace.




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