The global state of cybercrime legislation as at January 2023

Countries around the globe keep improving their domestic criminal law in line with the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. An updated cursory overview of the “Global State of Cybercrime Legislation” prepared by the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe (C-PROC) indicates that by 1 January 2023, some 130 States (67% of UN members) were considered to have criminalized offences against and by means of computers largely in line with the Convention on Cybercrime. And 96 States (or 50%) have also provided their criminal justice authorities with specific procedural powers to investigate cybercrime and secure electronic evidence. In both respects, this represents a nearly 100% increase over the ten years since 2013 when the first of such surveys was carried out.

These findings are also relevant for the current negotiation of a “Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes” by the United Nations: the more consistent the text of the future treaty is with that of the Convention on Cybercrime, the more likely it is to find consensus. Or conversely, the more the concepts and text of the future treaty diverge from the Convention on Cybercrime, the less likely it is to come to an agreement.

• Global State of Cybercrime Legislation 2013-2023: A Cursory Overview (version 31 December 2022)