The NZ government has joined up to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. The aim is to align countries in the fight against cybercrime by increasing cooperation in investigations. This is the only binding international treaty on cybercrime.
The stats show 11% of kiwis were victims of fraud and cybercrime in 2023. By joining the convention the tracking and convicting of overseas criminal will become easier to achieve.
The Bill contains provisions to ensure our domestic laws meet the requirements of the Convention. These include:
- New ‘preservation directions’ in the Search and Surveillance Act, to enable law enforcement agencies to require companies to preserve records that could be evidence of offending.
- Amendments to the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to enhance our ability to seek assistance from foreign countries for criminal investigations, and to provide assistance in return.
- Minor amendments to the Crimes Act to ensure offences related to cybercrime and the use of computers are comprehensive and fully align with the Convention.
It will be interesting to see how much influence overseas jurisdictions have in the enforcement of cybercrime activities. We can remember the Megaupload raid which seemed over the top for a file-sharing site. We wonder if this opens up the door for a repeat of that action in the future.
CertNZ report
In the first quarter of 2024 CertNZ has responded to 1,537 incident reports. The total direct losses was $6.6m. The majority of incidents related to Phishing and credential harvesting, scams and fraud as well as unauthorised access.
For recent trends and more insight you can check out:
For the government announcement you can view:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-extends-fight-against-cybercrime
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.