Federal Decree Law No 34 Of 2021 Cybercrime Pdf

[Faith Lienhard]

Byenabling the authorities to imprison anyone who makes any critical comment about the country or its rulers, the new decree is at odds with international free speech standards, Human Rights Watch said. Those standards require public officials to tolerate greater criticism than ordinary citizens.

The decree follows the detention without charge of 63 peaceful dissidents in recent months. The government also has forced UAE civil society organizations and local offices of foreign pro-democracy groups to close. The day UAE authorities issued the cybercrimes decree, the families of 63 detainees gathered at the Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi to protest the unlawful detention of their loved ones. Under the new cybercrimes law anyone using information technology to organize a similar peaceful protest risks five years in jail.

The UAE authorities should take immediate steps to bring the cybercrime law into line with international and regional standards on free speech, Human Rights Watch said. The UAE has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 19 of which outlines the right to freedom of opinion and expression. But it is a state party to the Arab Charter on Human Rights. Article 32 of the Arab Charter ensures the right to information, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression, and article 24 guarantees the right to freedom of political activity, the right to form and join associations, and the right to freedom of assembly and association.

Considering the remarkable increase in cybercrimes[1] in the UAE due to the rapid development in information technology systems, the New Law offers greater protection to citizens and residents in the UAE against online crimes given that it is an advanced law that studies a plethora of internet and social media aspects in light of the ever-growing digital era.

On first impression, the New Law contains some vague and ambiguous definitions and meanings. However, it is anticipated that all the ambiguity would be clarified following its implementation by the UAE Courts.

It is now prohibited to conduct surveys or questionnaires without a license when utilizing any information network under the New Law. It can be implied from this new provision that even students for instance, who, in light of their academic term, are not allowed to conduct surveys for scholastic purposes absent a license.

The Repealed Law provided for the punishment of whoever spreads rumors or false news using any information network, for the purpose of harming the reputation or the status of the UAE, its institutions, or its Rulers. However, subsequent to its amendment, it extended the aforementioned harm to the public, removing its limitation to UAE entities and Rulers only.

It is implied from the text of Article 52 of the New Law that an online user (on social media for instance) could be punished or held liable under the New Law by merely sharing or forwarding or distributing an article or comment containing inaccurate or misleading information/news, even if the said user is not the publisher of such information/news. Online users now have an obligation to check the credibility of the information it intends on sharing.

The New Law finally criminalizes the creation of a fake email account, a fake website or a fake social media account while misleadingly attributing it to any natural or legal person The punishment shall escalate, if the offender uses the fake account in a manner that offends the impersonated, or the fake account is attributed to a governmental entity.

The New Law further criminalizes whoever advertises any goods or service through misleading s/methods which includes inaccurate data and/or whoever advertises, promotes, or deals in any form or encourage others to deal with a digital currency or any payment unit that is not officially recognized in the UAE or without obtaining a license from the competent authority.

There are plenty of fraudulent techniques that cybercriminals use to target victims. For instance, cybercriminals often post false adverts on renowned commercial websites to promote goods that do not exist. The Cybercriminal subsequently attempts to convince the victim to transfer the money prior to the goods being delivered. Once the cybercriminals receive the payment, they would disappear and deactivate the e-mail address and/or phone numbers. Some cybercriminals go so far as to create their own websites or email addresses to promote a fake business. For example, there are several cases where cybercriminals would create an email address almost identical to that of a well-known company but would change a dot or a single letter making it hard for a victim to notice such difference for the purpose of tricking the victim into disclosing valuable and personal information.

The New Law criminalizes the promotion of medical products without a license. In other words, whoever creates, manages, or supervises a website or information network to promote or sell unlicensed medical products or copies of licensed medical products shall be punished with imprisonment and/or fine.

Knowing that physical begging is illegal under the UAE laws, the New Law now criminalizes any act of online begging using any technological means under Article 51. Additionally, Article 51 criminalizes whoever requests assistance using the same means from federal or local government entities in an offensive manner or contrary to the truth.

Making illegal content available and refraining from removing it subsequent to an order from the competent authorities in whole or in part was and still is punishable by law. However, previously, the punishment entailed imprisonment with an unspecified fine. Pursuant to the New Law, the punishment includes a fine of not less than AED 300,000 or not more than AED 1,000,000 without imprisonment.

Article 54 criminalizes whoever creates or modifies an E-robot, with the intention of distributing false news or data inside the UAE or whoever enables third parties to distribute such false news or data. An E-Robot is a software or a program which consists of a set of coded commands or instructions that tell an electronic system what automated tasks to perform.

Under the New Law, a person being accused of Cybercrime can choose to follow an amicable settlement process, with the Cybercrime victim or his representative, either before the public prosecution or the court irrespective of the status of the criminal case, as long as the judgment did not become final yet.

The new sophisticated and well-developed provisions of the New Law are a direct result of the undefined and limitless online world of Cybercriminals and their activities. In this world, the effortless access to information and personal data, and the easy circulation of news and information, has become uncontrollable, to the detriment of many who fell victims to scams, false advertising, and other Cybercrime activities.

[1] According to the official records of the Cybercrime Department at Dubai Police, the complaints and calls related to cybercrimes rose by 3,000 percent since the launch of the E-Crime platform in the past three years

Cybercrime law identifies standards of acceptable behaviour for information and communication technology (ICT) users; establishes socio-legal sanctions for cybercrime; protects ICT users, in general, and mitigates and/or prevents harm to people, data, systems, services, and infrastructure, in particular; protects human rights; enables the investigation and prosecution of crimes committed online (outside of traditional real-world settings); and facilitates cooperation between countries on cybercrime matters (UNODC, 2013, p. 52). Cybercrime law provides rules of conduct and standards of behaviour for the use of the Internet, computers, and related digital technologies, and the actions of the public, government, and private organizations; rules of evidence and criminal procedure, and other criminal justice matters in cyberspace; and regulation to reduce risk and/or mitigate the harm done to individuals, organizations, and infrastructure should a cybercrime occur. Accordingly, cybercrime law includes substantive, procedural and preventive law.

An illegal act needs to be clearly described in and prohibited by law. Pursuant to the moral principle of nullum crimen sine lege (Latin for "no crime without law") a person cannot be punished for an act that was not proscribed by law at the time the person committed the act (UNODC, 2013, p. 53). Substantive law defines the rights and responsibilities of legal subjects, which include persons, organizations, and states. Sources of substantive law include statutes and ordinances enacted by city, state, and federal legislatures ( statutory law), federal and state constitutions, and court decisions.

Some countries, instead of developing new special laws against cybercrime, amended their national legislation or codes, adding specific paragraphs to address cybercrime. With this practice, an interesting consequence for consideration has been that some countries decided to criminalize separately the illegal use of information and communication technology to commit any crime. Thus, if the perpetrator used illegal access in order to commit forgery or fraud, such behaviour would constitute two crimes at the same time.

Substantive cybercrime law includes laws that prohibit specific types of cybercrime (described in Cybercrime Module 2 on General Types of Cybercrime) and punishes non-compliance with these laws. Cybercrime includes traditional, real-world (offline) crimes (e.g., fraud, forgery, organized crime, money-laundering, and theft) perpetrated in cyberspace that are 'hybrid' or 'cyber-enabled' crimes, as well as 'new' or 'cyber-dependent' crimes that have been made possible with the advent of the Internet and Internet-enabled digital technologies (Wall, 2007; Maras 2014; Maras, 2016). For these reasons, many countries have developed laws that are specifically designed to deal with cybercrime. For example, Germany, Japan, and China, have amended the relevant provisions of their criminal code to combat cybercrime. Countries have also used existing laws that were designed for real-world (offline) crime to target certain cybercrimes and cybercriminals. As another example, in Iraq, the existing civil code (Iraqi Civil Code No. 40 of 1951) and penal code (Iraqi Penal Code No. 111 of 1969) are used to prosecute real-world crimes (e.g., fraud, blackmail, identity theft) perpetrated via the Internet and digital technology.

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