[huridocs-tech] Council of Europe calls for law on rights and duties of Internet users

Council of Europe press release
Assembly committee calls for law on rights and duties of internet users

Strasbourg, 15.12.2003 -- The Assembly's Legal Affairs Committee has
called for an international code defining the rights and duties of
internet users.  A European web ethics authority, backed by national
cyberethics committees with supervision powers, would be ''the key to
making businesses and private users responsible for using the Internet
lawfully as well as ethically'', the committee said in a draft
recommendation approved today.

The report, by Cypriot MP Christos Pourgourides, may be debated by the
plenary Assembly during its May session.


-------

Provisional version
Internet and the law
Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights Rapporteur: Mr Christos
Pourgourides, Cyprus, EPP

Draft recommendation

1.The Assembly recalls the importance of the Convention on cybercrime and
the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic
Processing of Personal Data for creating trust by the rule of law.

2. The Assembly welcomes the political message adopted by the Committee of
Ministers on the occasion of the World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS) (Geneva, December 2003) and especially the proposal by the Committee
of Ministers to examine the possibility of offering a platform to draft an
international code on inter alia the rights and duties of internet users.
It welcomes the efforts of the Dutch presidency of the Committee of
Ministers towards the drafting of such an instrument, in cooperation with
public stakeholders and private interests.

3.The structure of the Internet makes it all but impossible to regulate,
but at the same time it acknowledges that there is a general recognition
that Internet citizens are to be encouraged to behave in a civic manner.

4. Various states and private interest groups are actively encouraging the
adoption of codes of Internet ethics.

5. The Assembly is nevertheless of the opinion that it has to be decided
what is meant by "ethical" behaviour on the Internet, and the principles to
be applied collectively to all (access or service) providers, and
individually to Internet users, have to be established.

6. The Assembly suggests that the setting-up of a European web ethics
authority, backed by national cyberethics committees in all the states
which have Internet technology, is the key to making businesses and private
users responsible for using the Internet lawfully as well as ethically.

7. For these reasons, the Parliamentary Assembly recommends that the
Committee of Ministers:

i.establish a legal instrument, preferably in the form of an enlarged
convention on inter alia the basic rights and duties of internet users;

ii. establish, in the framework of the convention, an international body,
based in Europe, and representing various cultural approaches;

iii. give to the above-mentioned body the responsibility for drawing up and
monitoring the rules and principles and ensuring that national cyberethics
committees backing it respect them;

iv. calls on the governments of member states to give to the
above-mentioned national committees the power of supervision at national level.




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