A person walks past the United Nations headquarters, on Nov. 25, in New York City.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Researchers and human-rights organizations are urging Ottawa not to sign a controversial United Nations treaty aimed at tackling cybercrime, arguing that it is “deeply flawed” and would expose Canadians to heightened risk of foreign interference and other abuses.
The draft treaty, officially titled the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime, aims to increase international co-operation to more effectively combat crimes such as human trafficking, terrorism-related offences, and drug and arms dealing.
Tackling the increasingly pervasive, borderless and constantly evolving threat of cybercrime has proven challenging. The use of digital technology by transnational organized-crime groups has increased the speed, scale and scope of their operations, making international collaboration of paramount importance.
The treaty, which intends to improve that co-operation, is expected to be officially adopted by the United Nations next week, at which point it will be up to member states to adopt it.
However, more than a dozen academics, researchers and organizations – including Amnesty International Canada, PEN Canada and OpenMedia, as well as individuals from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and various other universities – have sent a letter to the federal government urging it not to adopt the treaty.
Doing so would require countries to adopt new criminal offences and to undertake what the letter deems “intrusive surveillance powers and exceedingly broad cross-border law enforcement co-operation mechanisms.”
The letter was sent to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, and Justice Minister and Attorney-General of Canada Arif Virani on Tuesday.
Its signatories are concerned that the treaty, which they describe as having sweeping powers and a lack of adequate human-rights safeguards, may allow foreign governments to abuse cross-border intelligence to engage in “domestic and transnational repression” – for instance, cracking down on political dissidents living abroad.
“Given the draft Convention’s expansive scope, it is on course to become a powerful tool for authoritarian governments that would abuse its expansive surveillance and cross-border co-operation mechanisms to expand their targeting, intimidation, and silencing of political opposition, activists, and human rights defenders including through specious allegations of wrongdoing,” the letter reads.
They’re also concerned that it would undermine cybersecurity, compromise press freedom and leave Canadians more vulnerable to state-sponsored espionage and foreign interference. Other international co-operation mechanisms, such as INTERPOL’s Red Notice program, have already been abused, they assert.
It’s not the first time that the treaty has attracted criticism. Earlier this year, 124 security researchers signed a letter expressing concerns that the treaty poses “substantial risks to global cybersecurity” by having a chilling effect on research. Advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have expressed reservations, as has technology giant Microsoft Corp., which has raised concerns about overly broad definitions of cybercrime.
Kate Robertson, a senior researcher with the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and one of the signatories, said the data-sharing obligations proposed in the treaty would be applicable to any digital evidence collected by a country’s police service, even if it doesn’t strictly involve cybercrime.
“That’s what has led many to criticize the UN’s proposed treaty, because it’s anticipated to flood already overloaded co-operation channels that exist with low-priority or even abusive police requests for digital information that have nothing to do with cybercrime,” Ms. Robertson said in an interview.
“The United States has asserted that it will not be signing and ratifying this treaty until meaningful human-rights safeguards are put in place … and Canada, as a country that has a long history of promoting respect for human rights, should also be leading in this diplomatic conversation,” she added.
Negotiations between member states about the convention have been under way for more than two years.
The treaty would be broader in scope and jurisdiction than the existing Budapest Convention, the first international treaty seeking to address cybercrime. It was signed in Budapest in 2001 and has since been ratified by 68 countries.
Ms. Robertson said the Budapest Convention and the new UN cybercrime treaty have many similar features.
“There are many who have said that the international community should be rallying around that existing framework, because it provides everything that is needed in order for countries to align their cybercrime laws,” she said.