There are few things that Canadians depend on as heavily as the legal system. It brings structure to our international policies, government, institutions, beliefs, everyday conduct, and personal welfare. However, the introduction of cybercrimes has changed the legal platform on a global scale. As technology advances at an unprecedented rate, we have to ask if our legal system is prepared to handle these new cases.
For clarification, a cybercrime is a crime that involves technology. Many cases, like theft and malware, have relatively easy legal approaches, but there is a new frontier that is not: Internet-based crimes. Unlike crimes that occur on a micro-level, such as theft from a bank where there is a clear victim-perpetrator relationship, the Internet works much more broadly. To put it simply, it is a shared commodity between many countries. This means many public resources lack clear ownership, so identifying accountability is much more elusive. For example, Luka Magnotta’s infamous gore video has been re-uploaded multiple times. While Magnotta had been persecuted for “publishing obscene material” – along with many other charges – persecuting those that have re-uploaded it has proven to be difficult. Taking a look at the nature of this cyber-crime, it is clear why.
First of all, the shared value of the Internet comes with the following issue: domains and e-companies are the intellectual property of their origin country. Enacting laws in foreign territory is highly dependent on national ties. This would explain why China’s political censorship, which is meant to censor criticism against the government, resulted in “The Great Firewall”; instead of persecuting the publications of other countries, like the United States, China’s government created a national network and blocked foreign Internet sources. This phenomenon is summed up by Xi Jinping, China’s current president, who stated, “‘We should respect the right of individual countries to independently choose their own path of cyber-development.’” Jinping also “[warned] against foreign interference ‘in other countries’ internal affairs.’” In other words, interfering with another country’s cyberlaws and internal affairs, more often than not, is a highly inappropriate international move. Legal systems are equipped to handle their actions and internal affairs but rarely the actions of another.
The second issue is that the Internet provides anonymity. During the Luka Magnotta case, a Montreal police officer was able to track a private, illegal copy of the gore video on YouTube. When approached, Google said they removed the video but “couldn’t immediately hand over information about the user.” Simply put, privacy policies protect the information of users, even under illegal conduct, and pursuing this information would lead to a legal struggle. Usually, this would be manageable; a search warrant would be issued, the perpetrator investigated, their cohorts revealed, and then charges pressed. Despite the extra effort this requires, at least justice would be found. Now, take the same time-consuming procedures and multiply it by hundreds or thousands of weakly-related incidents – that is the hurdle that the legal system is struggling to cope with.
The issue of anonymity is worsened by how widespread cybercrimes are. It is common knowledge that re-uploaded illegal content crosses many borders and spans many users and servers. It is difficult to monitor these problems, as seen in the case of revenge porn. According to Samantha Bates from Simon Fraser University, “the storage, reach, and replicability […] of digital media communication and content means that texts and media objects used in abuse may be persistently visible and connected to the victim’s identity.” In other words, the internet makes it easy to re-publish unwanted content in a way that attacks victims and evades the law. Going back to the Luka Magnotta case, how do legal efforts fare against this? Not well, as police have “unsuccessfully attempted to have [the video] removed from the Internet,” suggesting a weakness in the policies meant to combat cybercrimes.
Most disturbingly, this only addresses the currently identified cybercrimes domain. Advances in technology result in newly emerging crimes. One example is deepfakes, which is digitally translating someone’s likeness onto another video. Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist, was a victim of this due to her controversial arguments. When she saw an illegal and pornographic depiction of herself, she was so alarmed that she was, “sent to the hospital with heart palpitations and anxiety.” Although this depiction was a stark invasion of privacy and clearly not consensual, the response from legal officials was depressing. “The police wouldn’t file a report,” and even worse, “six men in the police station […] started watching the video in front of [her with] smirks on their faces.” This new type of cybercrime had appeared almost instantly after the technology was made available, yet “it can take months — sometimes years — for a bill to work its way through [Canadian] Parliament.” On top of pressing concerns about currently identified cybercrimes, the rapid advance of technology threatens a slowly changing legal system.
Once again, is our legal system prepared to handle Internet-based crimes? The facts state otherwise. There
By Morgan McKay
Please note that opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page.
