The Law
Laws covering cyber crime vary from country to country, and because criminals often come from countries outside of where they commit their crimes, cyber crime is hard to prosecute. The following outlines the laws in Canada.
What is the law?
Summaries of Criminal Code Offences Relating to Internet Crime
Section 163.1 - Child Pornography Offences
Canada has possibly the strictest child pornography laws in the world.
Merely possessing or even looking at child pornography, even if you don't download it, can get you five years in a federal penitentiary. Your computer can be forfeited, your DNA entered into the national databank, and you can be entered into the National Sex Offender Registry.
Your freedom to go to places where kids go - like swimming pools, community centers, school playgrounds - can be restricted for the rest of your life. It's much, much worse if you're distributing it, making it available, importing, or creating child pornography. Then you're looking at 10 years in the penitentiary, on top of all the other orders.
Section 172.1 - Internet Luring
Again, Canada 's response to adults trying to prey on children via the Internet is one of the strongest in the world. Even if there is no actual meeting, not even an attempt, the very communication of sexually explicit conversation between an adult and someone who they think is under 18, or who pretends to be 18 but is actually under 18, is a serious criminal offence.
That means that people who are "role playing" or fantasizing in chat rooms with kids can look forward to up to five years in jail. This offence was created in June 2002 specifically to capture predators who have been luring our children into sexual assaults - and they are getting caught.
Criminal Code offences in Canada relating to Technological Crimes:
Section 342.1 - Unauthorized Use of Computers
These are the provisions that cover hackers and those who use other people's accounts on AOL and similar sites without authorization. When you pass around someone else's password, you face up to 10 years in a federal penitentiary.
Section 430 (1.1) - Mischief to Data
Whether it is defacing a website or deleting data from someone else's computer, it's mischief, and a criminal offence. If you destroy or alter data, render it ineffective, obstruct or interfere with its lawful use, or obstruct or interfere with anyone from getting at their data, you're facing up to 10 years in jail.
Section 430 (1.1) - Counselling Offences
Telling someone to commit a crime is reprehensible. It is dangerous, especially on the Internet when a message like that can reach so many people. It is important to realize that telling someone to commit a crime, even if they don't do it, is a crime itself.
It is a crime if you do it in a public arena, or if you do it in an Internet chat room. And the penalty for counselling someone to commit a crime is the same as it is for the crime that you're telling them to commit.
To read the actual criminal code, visit http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/index.html
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