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Dutch consider tough new cybercrime law

6 Mar 2017

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS: The Netherlands is considering a bill to give police far-ranging powers to prosecute cybercrime, including the ability to hack suspects' computers or trap suspected paedophiles.

The "Computer Crime III" bill will be discussed Wednesday by the Senate, the last step before becoming law in a country where according to the central statistics office, 92% of its 17 million citizens use the internet.

Apart from allowing police to hack into computers, tablets and mobile phones - with a judge's permission - the new law will also allow police to use so-called "lure teenagers" and virtually-generated "children" to entrap paedophiles.

"Lure teenagers" are police agents posing online as minors to entice cyber sex.

Police have previously used the fake teens to trap potential paedophiles, but could not prosecute perpetrators because according to Dutch law no minor was actually involved.

The bill was approved by parliament's lower house in December including the possibility to use "virtual fictitious creations" pretending to be minors as lures, the NRC daily newspaper reported on Friday.

A Dutch rights group in 2013 identified over 1,000 paedophiles around the world by offering online sex with a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipina girl called "Sweetie".

The new law will also make attempted grooming - where an adult chats to a child on the internet with the eventual aim to get the child to commit a sexual act online or to sexually abuse the child - a criminal offense.

The proposed law comes against the backdrop of Dutch prosecutors seeking nearly 11 years behind bars for a man accused of a global racket which coaxed young girls into posing naked before blackmailing them.

The defendant Aydin C. is suspected of forcing dozens of young women from as far as Britain, Canada, Norway and the United States into performing sex acts in front of their webcams.

He is also wanted for trial in Canada in the case of 15-year-old Amanda Todd who committed suicide in October 2012 after being tormented by an anonymous cyberbully.

Source: AFP

Source: I-Net Bridge

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