Australia signs on to intl cybercrime treaty

CANBERRA - Australia has now formally joined 38 other nations as a party to the world's first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced Monday.

"Australia becoming a party to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime will help combat criminal offences relating to forgery, fraud, child pornography, and infringement of copyright and intellectual property," said Dreyfus.

"The Internet makes it easy for criminals to operate from abroad, especially from those countries where regulations and enforcement arrangements are weaker," he said. By joining the Convention, Australian law enforcement agencies will be able to rapidly obtain data about communications relevant to cybercrimes from partner agencies around the world.

"The Convention will also ensure vital evidence is not lost before a mutual assistance request can be completed."

With the Convention now in effect, Australia's investigative agencies are able to use new powers contained in the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Act 2012 to work with cybercrime investigators around the globe.

The Act amended certain Commonwealth cybercrime offences and enabled domestic agencies to access and share information relating to international investigations.

Dreyfus says the Act also created new privacy protections, safeguards and reporting requirements for the exercise of new and existing powers.

"A warrant is always required to access the content of a communication whether the information is in Australia, or accessed from overseas under the Cybercrime Convention. The Cybercrime Act and the Cybercrime Convention do not impact in any way on the need to have a warrant to access content from a telephone call, SMS or e-mail."