EU underscores need for international cooperation to address cybercrime

The European Union underscored the need for international cooperation and dialogue to address cybercrime.

“Cybercrime knows no borders, to fight it we need international cooperation,” EU Ambassador Franz Jessen said during the Training of Trainers Course on Cybercrime and Electronic Evidence for Judges, Magistrates and Prosecutors of the ASEAN Region which opened in Manila on Tuesday.

“We need international agreements. We need dialogues so that we find ways to learn from each other especially as we have a shared objective in this fight against cybercrime,” he said.

Jessen expressed his appreciation to the Philippines for its efforts to join the Budapest Convention during the last years, culminating with the passing of the Accession Instrument by the Senate in February this year.

As soon as the Philippine Instrument of Accession will be deposited at the Council of Europe, the Philippines will be the 57th party to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime.

The Budapest Convention is much more than one of the tools to address online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

The convention provides the framework for harmonised, common definitions in criminalizing cybercrime offenses as well as for the necessary procedural measures to provide law enforcement to investigate cybercrime.

“Having common legal and procedural standards is the foundation of international judicial cooperation, but the convention further facilitates this by providing mechanisms for rapid and reliable international cooperation,” he added.

These include the expedited preservation of computer data and the network of 24/7 points of contact with designated central authorities in each member party to the convention.

Manuel Almeida Pereira, Global Action on Cybercrime + or GLACY+ (project manager, Council of Europe) said that the Council has made a series of trainings for highprofile people on cybercrime to enable them to spread their knowledge to the region.

Crime has no face in this digital age, he stressed.

The EU has worked together with the Council of Europe, an organization of 47 member states, to fight cybercrime not only within its member states, but also beyond because cybercrime knows no borders.

Started with a budget of euro 3.35 million, GLACY was a concrete output of this initiative to support seven priority countries, among them the Philippines, to prepare for the accession to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. It was expanded in 2016 with the Global Action on Cybercrime Extended (GLACY+) with euro 12 million budget from the European Commission and another euro 1.3 million from the Council of Europe.

The Ambassador said that given the Philippine commitment and its rich experience in driving the fight against cybercrime, the Philippines functions as a hub within the project GLACY+.

Justice Undersecretary Erickson Balmes said that no country has a monopoly on addressing cybercrime as he thanked the Council of Europe for the GLACY project.