Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined a coalition of civil society organizations in urging UN Member States **not to sign the UN Convention Against Cybercrime**.
For those states that proceed despite these warnings, we strongly encourage immediate and concrete steps to **limit the human rights harms** that this Convention is poised to unleash. These harms are likely to be severe and extremely difficult to prevent in practice.
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### Key Concerns About the Cybercrime Convention
The Convention obligates states to establish **broad electronic surveillance powers** to investigate and cooperate on a wide range of crimes — including many that are unrelated to information and communication systems — without adequate human rights safeguards.
It requires governments to collect, obtain, preserve, and share electronic evidence with foreign authorities for any “serious crime.” The Convention defines a serious crime as an offense punishable under domestic law by **at least four years’ imprisonment** (or a higher penalty).
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### Potential for Abuse and Human Rights Violations
In many countries, **simply exercising free speech; expressing a nonconforming sexual orientation or gender identity; or protesting peacefully** can fall under the definition of a serious criminal offense. People have faced lengthy prison terms, and in even worse cases, torture — all for criticizing their governments on social media, raising a rainbow flag, or opposing a monarch.
In today’s digital era, nearly every message or call generates **granular metadata**—revealing who communicates with whom, when, and from where. This data routinely crosses national borders through global networks.
As currently written, the UN Cybercrime Convention risks enabling states to exploit its **expansive cross-border data access and cooperation mechanisms** to acquire such information for political surveillance. This could be used to monitor critics, pressure their families, and target marginalized communities abroad.
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### Global Implications: A Vehicle for Digital Repression
Abusive governments are increasingly employing questionable tactics to extend their reach beyond their own borders — targeting dissidents, activists, and journalists worldwide.
The UN Cybercrime Convention risks becoming a vehicle for **globalizing repression**, establishing an unprecedented multilateral infrastructure for digital surveillance. It would allow states to access and exchange data across borders in ways that make political monitoring and targeting difficult to detect or challenge.
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### The Stakes for Global Digital Freedom
EFF has long sounded the alarm about the UN Cybercrime Treaty’s sweeping powers of cross-border cooperation and its alarming lack of human rights safeguards.
As the Convention opens for signature on October 25–26, 2025, in Hanoi, Vietnam — a country repeatedly condemned by international rights groups for jailing critics and suppressing online speech — the stakes for global digital freedom have never been higher.
The Convention’s many flaws cannot easily be mitigated because it fundamentally lacks a mechanism to **suspend states that systematically fail to respect human rights or the rule of law**.
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### Our Call to Action
Given these risks and shortcomings, states must **refuse to sign or ratify the UN Convention Against Cybercrime**.
Protecting global digital rights and freedoms requires vigilance and commitment—not treaty provisions that pave the way for expanded surveillance and repression.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/joint-statement-un-cybercrime-convention-eff-and-global-partners-urge-governments