EU

In the European Union, the Commission of the European Communities presented on April 19, 2002 a proposal for a Council Framework Decision on attacks against information systems. The proposal was adopted by the Council in 2005 and includes Article 2: Illegal access to Information Systems, Article 3: Illegal System Interference and Article 4: Illegal Data Interference:

Article 2
Illegal access to Information systems
1. Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional access without right to the whole or any part of an information system is punishable as a criminal offence, at least for cases which are not minor.
2. Each Member State may decide that the conduct referred to in paragraph 1 is incriminated only where the offence is committed by infringing a security measure.

Article 3
Illegal system interference
Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional serious hindering or interruption of the functioning of an information system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering, suppressing or rendering inaccessible computer data is punishable as a criminal offence when committed without right, at least for cases which are not minor.

Article 4
Illegal data interference
Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional deletion, damaging, deterioration, alteration, suppression or rendering inaccessible of computer data on an information system is punishable as a criminal offence when committed without right, at least for cases which are not minor.

In May 2007, the EU Commission considered an initiative regarding European legislation on identity theft, called: "Towards a general policy on the fight against cyber crime"

The Commission organized an European Union Expert Meeting on Cybercrime in November 2007. The meeting represented the next step for the European Union in implementing the general policy outlined by the Commission. A statement was made as follows:

"The increasing prevalence of cybercrime across Europe, spanning large scale attacks in Estonia, identity theft in Spain, illegal content and high-profile online child abuse incidents in Austria, Germany, Italy and the UK, highlights the need for concerted action. Indeed successful operations such as "Operation Koala" and the global hunt for "Vico" pedophile depends on regional and international cooperation. The conclusions of today´s meeting represent an important step by the EU to establish the cooperative links upon which success is build."

A Framework Decision amending the Framework Decision 2002/475 JHA on combating Terrorism has been prepared in 2008 in EU. It will include three new crimes in the EU legislation: public provocation to commit terrorist offences, recruitment for terrorism, and training for terrorism.

The Council of Ministers of the European Union adopted in November 2008 the Councils strategy to reinforce the fight against cyber crime. The new strategy recommends:

“reinforcing partnership between the police and the private sector by better knowledge-sharing on investigation methods and trends in cyber crime. It also encourages both parties to respond quickly to information requests, resort to remote searches, cyber patrols for online tracking of criminals and joint investigations across borders. The strategy also calls for the setting up an alert platform in the short term, where reports on crime committed on the Internet, such as posting of illegal content, in EU would be pooled for cross-checking by Europol.”

Europol was requested to implement the platform.