MANILA,
PHILIPPINES - Immediately after it was passed on 12 September 2012,
the Philippines’ Cybercrime Prevention Act was met with a flurry of legal
challenges from journalists and civil society organisations in the Philippines.
An Analysis released today by the Centre for Law and Democracy confirms and
supports their concerns, finding that the law perpetrates significant
violations of international standards on freedom of expression. “There is a widespread tendency for lawmakers to seek to apply rules to the Internet which fail to take into account its unique nature, thereby violating freedom of expression online,” said CLD Executive Director Toby Mendel. “It is possible to address legitimate concerns in a way which protects the free flow of information online; unfortunately, this law fails to do that.”
Some of the more serious problems cited in the Analysis are that the Cybercrime Prevention Act:
· extends existing criminal rules, including the
country’s already problematic criminal defamation laws, to the Internet with no
consideration of the specific implications of this, in most cases imposes even
harsher penalties;
· grants law enforcement sweeping surveillance powers
and requires the Department of Justice to block websites in cases of prima
facie breach of the Act;
· grants Philippine authorities vast jurisdiction to
police the Internet;
· criminalises mere recklessness and cybersquatting;
and
· imposes very extensive data retention requirements
on service providers.
The implementation of the Cybercrime Prevention Act
has been suspended by the Supreme Court for 120 days, in order to allow the
challenges against the law to proceed. We call on the Court to recognise the
ways in which the Act breaches the right to freedom of expression, and for
lawmakers in the Philippines to amend it so as to strike an appropriate balance
between addressing crimes and respecting fundamental human rights.
The Analysis is available at: http://www.law-democracy.org/
For further information, please contact:
Michael Karanicolas
Legal
Officer
Centre
for Law and Democracy
Email:
michael@law-democracy.org
Tel:
+1 902
448-5290
Twitter:
@law_democracy
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