Policy to Prevent and Combat Cyber-crime in Africa

Izabela Oleksiewicz

doi:10.11648/j.hss.20190704.13

Abstract

The global nature of the Internet has enabled extremely fast communication and transfer of most forms of human activity to the network, including those negatively received. Cyberspace is increasingly being spoken of as a new social space in which the same problems are reflected in the real world. Cybercrime is therefore a modern form of crime, exploiting the possibilities of digital techniques and the environment of computer networks. The research subject of this article is the policy of combating and preventing the phenomenon of cybercrime, while the research subject is Africa. At the beginning, the following research hypotheses were adopted: the slow pace of economic development of African countries is conditioned by the lack of appropriate legal regulations in the field of policy against cybercrime. This favors the development of economic cybercrime, which in turn testifies to the lack of measurement and control tools to limit and counter the very phenomenon of cybercrime in this area. Secondly, more importantly, the slow pace of ratification of international agreements also indicates that it will probably take longer than originally assumed that appropriate instruments of public international law could be legally binding within the African Union. Thirdly, the assumption was made that Africa is a potential for future economic development. In turn, the increase in the absorption and use of the Internet will contribute to its economic growth over time, which will continue to lead to the growth of cybercrime. The author, within the framework of this, publication, tries to show institutional and legal deficiencies on selected examples and indicate scenarios for preventing this phenomenon.

Highlights

The global nature of the Internet has enabled extremely fast communication and transfer of most forms of human activity to the network, including those negatively received
Cyber-crime is described as a subcategory of computer-crime including any kind of crime that is committed with the use of the Internet or other computer network
The excessively slow pace of the Member States aimed at signing and ratifying the Convention leads to delays in achieving its objectives, such as provision harmonisation on cyber-security in the Member States

Summary

Essence and Scope of Cyber-Terrorism Phenomenon as a 21st Century Challenge

The notion of cyber-terrorism is becoming an increasingly more popular topic in the literature of the subject, even though it is not yet defined from the normative point of view. Cyber-crime is referred to as such a form of using telecommunication systems, computer network or Intranet that aims to violate any right secured by law [3] What makes it different and distinct from classical type of crime is its direct relation to a computer technology environment and using computer networks to commit such crimes [4]. According to Russians: „Information warfare is understood as a battle between countries in the information space intended to cause damage to information systems, their data or resource processing, structures of fundamental significance or other, destabilise political, economic or social systems as well as to enforce a particular country to undertake actions in favour of its opponent” [14] Some countries, especially such cyber-powers as Russia, China or the USA, recognised the outstanding potential of cyberspace. Vast majority of the attacks is performed by China and the attacks target government and military units as well as business enterprises

Conditions of Policy to Combat Cyber-Crime in Africa

Legal Framework for Legislation and Cyber-Crime in Africa

Findings

Conclusions