Evolution of the Criminal Legal Frameworks for Preventing and Combating Cybercrime
Evolution of the Criminal Legal Frameworks for Preventing and Combating Cybercrime

Summary/Abstract: The dynamism of cyberspace brings along, incessantly, new challenges for many professions, especially for legal practitioners. “The law cannot follow in real time the technological progress”. It is essential, that it always keeps up and not stay too far behind. For a long time, cybercrimes have not found themselves incriminated in express legal provisions, except for Law no. 8/1996 on copyright and related rights, which criminalizes software privacy, covering only a small part of this hazardous phenomenon, and Law no. 16/1995 on the protection of topographies of semiconductor products. Law no. 21/1999 on preventing and sanctioning money laundering has introduced for the first time in the Romanian legislation the concept of “offenses committed via computers”. Until the entry into force of the new Penal Code, the main regulatory act regarding cybercrimes was represented by Law no. 161/2003, with its subsequent amendments and completions, which dedicates its Title III to issues related to cybercrime. In Chapter 3 of this Title, the offenses are structured and categorized into 3 sections: Section I, Offences against the confidentiality and integrity of computer data and systems, including: illegal access to a computer system, illegal interception of computer data transmission, alteration of the integrity of computer data, hindering the functioning of information systems, illegal operations with computer devices or software; Section II, Computer crimes: computer forgery and computer fraud; Section III, Child pornography through computer systems. In order to create the necessary legal framework for the prevention and control of cybercrime, as well as with a view to the ratification of the European Convention relating to this field, the Romanian legislator thought it was absolutely necessary to draft Title III, on the prevention and combat of cybercrime.

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