The Impact of the New Informational Era on Law
Anca-Iulia Stoian · Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice · 2012
ABSTRACT. The concept of includes many varied forms of delinquent acts, more or less incriminated by some member states, traditional type of crimes (such as theft, fraud, forgeries, etc.), as well as new types of crimes, specific to this field (unauthorized access, sabotage, unauthorized interception, etc.). In 1989, European Committee on Criminal Problems of Council of Europe elaborated a set of guidelines for national legislators, which specified activities to be subject to criminal incrimination. The drafting of those guidelines for national legislators makes no longer necessary adoption of a formal definition for because this definition would create more difficulties than it would solve. In analysis of functional features of activities concerned, Committee did not attempt to give a formal definition to crime, but gave to each country task to adapt this functional classification to its own legal system and historical traditions, taking into account crimes listed in minimal list and in optional list.Keywords: crime, fraud, technology, legal protectionComputers have penetrated activities of all countries and have become an indispensable tool for carrying out various activities and aligning with international IT standards. The advent of Internet, facilitated by developments in computing and networking techniques, changes even more radically way people will communicate and will run a series of activities, from commercial ones to instructive-educational ones.1The new technology has brought many great benefits to administration, business and even to individual himself.2The concept of was subject of studies developed in international institutions. The Report of European Committee on Criminal Problems uses expression computer-related crime or cyber-crime, terms which are not, however, generally recognized or accepted. The group of experts meeting in OECD adopted in a study conducted in 1996, following working definition: computer abuse is any illegal, unethical or unauthorized behavior concerning an automatic data treatment and/or data transmission.3Experts have extensively debated problem of accurately defining or crime. Still after years of discussions, they have not established an internationally recognized definition, which is why there are only functional definitions that do not correspond to brevity and lack of ambiguity necessary to a unitary approach.The definition given by OECD expert has disadvantage of encompassing also an unethical or unauthorized behavior, even a behavior that is not a crime, despite of its incriminating character. The first of definitions quoted above shows weakness that last part of it seems to exclude, for example, unauthorized use of computers, while first part could include more traditional crimes unconnected strictly to informatics.The damage brought to mankind through fraud is estimated to enormous amounts, although companies, especially from financial and banking sectors, avoid release of such data.4 In fact, only a small fraction of crimes committed are reported to police authorities. Thus, was considered the object of most extensive camouflage operation since Watergate.5If accurate description of various types of is somehow possible, on other hand, accurate assessment of extent of losses and of actual number of crimes is extremely difficult.So, number of crimes is not verifiable. However, authorities noted that official studies and investigations showed that phenomenon must be taken seriously.Investigations developed in GFR, a few years ago, indicated that losses due to some manipulations amounted from 200,000 to 300,000 euros. …