Parliament calls for harmonisation of information society legislation
The European Parliament's Committee on citizens' freedoms and rights, justice and home affairs is urging the European Commission to draw up common definitions and proposals relating to the information society in an attempt to harmonise Member State jurisdiction and combat cyber crime. The draft resolution by Swedish MEP Charlotte Cederschiöld asks the Commission to propose legislative and non legislative initiatives which will enable a general framework for policy on computer related crimes such as human trafficking, money laundering, child pornography, the spreading of computer viruses, denial of service, unauthorised access and the circumvention of intellectual property. Other recommendations in the draft resolution include the promotion of European research into protection and prevention technologies such as encryption, the establishment of an EU cyber crime forum, amending the Council of Europe draft convention of cyber crime and intensifying the dialogue with the USA in order to find a common strategy and reduce differences in approach to fighting cyber crime. Meanwhile, in the UK, business leaders are calling on the government to set up a national database to combat Internet fraud. They suggest the database be based on the US Internet fraud complaint centre. The call comes after a survey suggested that cyber crime is deterring companies from selling goods and services on the Internet. Two thirds of companies taking part in the survey had experienced a 'serious incident' in the past year. Only 53 per cent of participants claimed to consider the Internet a safe place to do business with other companies, whilst only 32 per cent believed it to be a safe way of selling to customers.