French Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique de Villepin made the
announcement earlier this month when presenting the French Council
of Ministers with draft legislation authorising the
ratification.
France's ratification would be the Convention's fourth – with
five needed before it can enter into force.
In particular, the Convention deals with offences related to
infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child
pornography and offences connected with network security. It also
covers a series of procedural powers such as searches of and
interception of material on computer networks.
Controversially, the Convention includes powers to preserve
data, to search and seize, to collect traffic data and to intercept
communications. These powers came in for serious criticism from
privacy activists during the drafting process.
It also contains an Additional Protocol that makes it a criminal
offence to disseminate racist or xenophobic propaganda via computer
networks – although this had to be separated from the main text to
avoid alienating the US, where it would likely be deemed
inconsistent the country's Constitutional right of free speech.
The Convention has so far been signed by 33 of the 42 Member
States of the Council of Europe, including the UK, France, Germany
and Norway. Four non-member states – Canada, Japan, South Africa
and the US – have also signed the treaty.
However, for the Convention to have the force of law it must not
only be signed, but also ratified, i.e. given effect to in the laws
of a participating country, by five of those states - three of
which must be members of the Council of Europe. So far only three
Member States, Albania, Croatia and Estonia, have taken this
step.
The text of the Convention is available at:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/
WhatYouWant.asp?NT=185
