Extremism, Bullying and Harm in the Information Society
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Course
Information Technology Law
Institution
London School Of Economics (LSE)
Book
Information Technology Law
This week's lecture looks at a variety of issues surrounding crime and law enforcement in the Information Society including online harassment and bullying, terrorist activity promulgated by computer and internet, phishing and computer fraud and identity theft. We will ask how law enforcement bodies...
Week 7:
Cybercrime
Objective:
- This lecture analyses different types of cybercrime and the specific legal response to each of these.
- Todays’ topics:
- Introduction
o Legal Responses to Cyber-Harassment and Online Grooming
o The Application of the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006 to Cyber-terrorism
o The Law Applicable to Identity Theft and Fraud in the Information Society
The Criminal Internet:
- Remember
o Some aspects of Cyberspace attract criminal elements.
Anonymity and pseudonymity
Global Audience
Large Market for (Criminal) Services
ID proxies (credit cards etc)
No face-to-face interaction
o These are a challenge for law enforcement authorities
Today’s lecture International co-operation
Specialist resources required to tackle this criminal behaviour
Costs of law enforcement
Offences against
Grooming the person, enabled Phishing
and supported by Fraud
ICT
Disseminating Cyberterrorism Terrorist propaganda
terrorist
publications
- Stalking as an aggravated form of harassment
- All offences are illegal in the UK
The Legal Response to Cyber-Harassment and Online Grooming:
Cyber-Harassment:
- Definition: Harassment is behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and, which is usually found threatening or disturbing.
- Different types of harassment:
o Flaming
Posting of provocative posts, directly insulting to a specific person. Similar to trolling, but a closer
relationship.
o Doxxing- outing.
Posting of personal info about someone without their consent. Usually to embarrass or humiliate
someone.
o Trolling
Posting inflammatory comments online
o Stalking
Aggravated form of harassment
Can result in real life harassment
Protecting from Harassment Act 1997:
- Victim can be either an adult or a child- not distinction
o Both civil and criminal remedies
- S.1 - A person ‘must not pursue a course of conduct
o [a] which amounts to harassment of another, and
o [b] which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.’
Know or ought to know a bit controversial. Sometimes those who stalk/harass have mental
impairments, so what do we mean by this?
S1(2): … if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course
of conduct amounted to harassment of the other.
, o Conduct can mean an act or speech- and must occur on at least 2 occasions
- Offence of Stalking
o S.2 can be up to 6 months imprisonment, up to even 5 years
o S.2A - A person is guilty of an offence if
(a) the person pursues a course of conduct in breach of section 1(1), and
Has to amount to harassment of the person
(b) the course of conduct amounts to stalking.
Refers to acts associated with stalking.
S2A (2) - clarifies when a person’s course of conduct amounts to stalking
o S4 - Aggravated offence of stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress [on at least 2
occasions]
Can lead to imprisonment up to 5 years
Harassment and Stalking:
- S.1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1998:
o It is an offence to send an indecent, offensive, or threatening letter, electronic communication, or other article to
another person.
Summary offence - max sentence of imprisonment of six months.
But, usually prosecutor doesn’t go for this act due to the lack of a restraining order. So, would go for
PHA 1997 instead
- S.43 of the Telecommunications Act 1984:
o It is an offence to send, by means of a public telecommunication system, a message or other matter that is
grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character; or which is sent for the purpose of causing
annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety to another and which is known to be false.
Summary offence - max sentence of imprisonment of six months
Harassment in the UK Courts:
- AMP v Persons Unknown
o Facts:
AMP either had her phone stolen or lost it, containing explicit images of her- her face was
recognizable. These made it onto BitTorrent systems.
She got messages on FB and other platforms threatening her with the exposure of her pictures on more
popular sites
Her barrister believed most people sharing the content would be based within the EU – perhaps even
the UK as it is likely that they know her
o Judgement
Sought an order under s.3 of the Act, which was granted in December 2011.
Anyone sharing the images within the EU may be served the order which carries criminal penalties.
[As their names were seen when they downloaded the image]
- R v Jury
o Facts:
2007-2014: Mr. Jury subjected both Ms. Carlson and her daughter to the most terrible campaign of
stalking, sending 619 messages through different platforms, purporting to come from her late father,
causing great distress. He hacked her social media, downloaded pics of her. Stalked her IRL.
2014: he was arrested and charged under s.4A, given one sentence of 2 yrs and one of 2 yrs and 6 mnts
to run consecutively.
o Judgement
On appeal the court found this was “an exceptionally serious offence of this kind and it also seems to
us that the sentence was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.”
Grooming:
- Definition: The act of befriending or establishing an emotional connection with a child, in order to lower the child’s
inhibitions in preparation for sexual abuse.
o Not an internet-specific offence (eg. Rochdale case)
o Facilitated by nature of communications media?
Comfort zone
Accustomed to meeting new people online
Adults can pose as children by using anonymity/pseudonymity
Lowers the defences of child victims?
Legal Response to Grooming:
- Sexual Offences Act 2003 - Section 15 ‘Meeting a child following sexual grooming etc’
o Considered to be less effective due to the rise of the internet and social media after 2003
o Complicated offence:
Not the act of grooming that is actually criminalized, but it is the meeting afterwards.
Because they didn’t want to risk criminalising an innocent conversation
Victim has to be under 16
Needs to have an intention to commit an offence
Needs to have an intention to meet the child
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