The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (the Budapest Convention) enters into force for the United Kingdom today, following the UK’s ratification on 25 May 2011.
Key points
- The main international treaty on cybercrime.
- Harmonises offences such as illegal access, illegal interception, data and system interference, and misuse of devices.
- Provides procedural powers, including expedited preservation of stored computer data.
- Enables faster cross-border cooperation between law enforcement agencies.
- Open to non-European states, including the United States, Japan and Australia.
For UK organisations, ratification improves the prospects of international cooperation when investigating cyber attacks that originate overseas. It also underlines the importance of preserving logs and evidence during incident response.
Source: Convention on Cybercrime (ETS No. 185) (Council of Europe)
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