Public sentiment regarding the UN Cybercrime Convention is largely polarized; while some viewers express hope for enhanced cybersecurity and protection for vulnerable groups, the majority voice strong skepticism and concern about potential state overreach, censorship, and erosion of personal freedoms. The balance of opinion highlights a caution towards the potential for authoritarian misuse of the treaty.

United Nations

Member States

Cybersecurity Experts

Civil Liberties Organizations

Looks good on paper and bad in practice.

Making countries actually arrest real malicious hackers or people making CSAM? Very, very good!

Banning privacy-focused crypto and other things that will make it easier for totalitarian governments to go after dissidents? Very, very bad.

These days anything the UN pushes needs to be looked at with a very strong magnifying glass because there is probably something in there that will strip away more personal freedom.

Jacksthrowawayreddit

My main concerns are the steps they are willing to take to make this convention effective. They could be willing to restrict personal rights to privacy, banning E2EE, demonising cryptography, and quite literally constructing the normalisation of zero privacy - marginalising those who see privacy much differently.

Initially this would be effective against scammers who lack any decent opsec, however I don't find this will be effective against those that in contrast have extremely talented opsec. Thus I pray that the UN won't bitch about how difficult it is to break through encryption, and are willing to find alternate routes to accurately locate cybercrime hotspots, than trying to limit every human right in the process.

deadlyspudlol

"It can't hurt" is quite a naive take. This could end up increasing state surveillance, reducing personal privacy, weakening encryption, chilling security research, punishing whistleblowers and political dissidents, etc. All the things that these sorts of agreements always toy with. And it makes no material change to extradition (no world powers would sign it if it did) so good luck prosecuting those Russian hackers.

bitsynthesis

"Hey look what we got the US to agree to LOL"

Blaaamo

"It can't hurt" is typically the stupidest thing someone can say.

Thanks for banging it out early so I can ignore your post.

Wise-Activity1312

I dug into this after some friends pointed out jow bad it is and its rwally bad. Possibly the hint should have come from the fact that Russia, China and Iran are all involved.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) both did excellent analyses of the treaty, here are the top issues that they flagged as major concerns.

**Overly Broad and Vague Definitions**
The treaty adopts sweeping definitions for cybercrime and “serious crime,” enabling states to criminalize a wide range of activities—including legitimate speech, dissent, whistleblowing, and routine cybersecurity research—according to each country’s own laws and political preferences. The absence of precise definitions leaves room for arbitrary and abusive enforcement, especially by authoritarian states.

**Weak or Optional Human Rights Safeguards**
Despite calls for strong human rights protections, the treaty leaves almost all safeguards to the discretion of individual states. Critical measures—such as judicial review, necessity and proportionality standards, and meaningful redress mechanisms—are not mandatory. This enables countries with poor human rights records to comply minimally and still use the treaty’s powers, with little to no external accountability.

**Facilitation of Transnational Repression &amp; Evidence Abuse**
The treaty authorizes cross-border evidence gathering and mutual legal assistance not only for cybercrimes but for any offense punishable by at least four years of imprisonment under national law, vastly widening surveillance and legal cooperation channels. There are only superficial protections intended to prevent cooperation in politically motivated prosecutions; the threshold for refusal is extremely high and operational safeguards are lacking.

**Erosion of Internet Freedom &amp; Good-Faith Security Research**
With its blanket criminalization of unauthorized access and lack of carve-outs for good-faith cybersecurity research, the treaty puts independent security researchers and journalists at risk. Activities essential to digital security, such as vulnerability testing and reporting, could be prosecuted by states that weaponize the treaty—from stifling research ecosystems to criminalizing dissent and whistleblowing.

**Digital Sovereignty and State Control**
The treaty enshrines state sovereignty over the principles of a free, open internet. Russia, China, and other authoritarian states shaped key provisions, advancing their agenda of digital sovereignty—complete state control over domestic internet infrastructure and data flows. This undermines the global, interoperable internet and facilitates censorship, surveillance, and fragmentation.

**Risk of Undermining Existing Protections (Budapest Convention)**
By promoting itself as a global standard, the UN treaty threatens to undercut the older Budapest Convention, which includes much stronger human rights norms and is widely supported by democracies. Authoritarian states that refused the Budapest Convention now wield influence over the new treaty, and the latter’s adoption could pressure other states to relax their rights standards in the name of harmonization.

**Increased Risk from Expansion Protocols**
Even as consensus on basic cybercrime definitions remains unsettled, the treaty structure allows for protocols to expand covered crimes with only a two-thirds majority, risking further encroachment on free expression and peaceful protest.

marcrogers

I had to speak with both the American and Australian parties and offer suggestions in the lead up to further drafting and negotiations late last year.

Its very upsetting that no steps were taken to inscribe de-escalation strategies and defined measures for serious incidents involving the loss of life in regard to state sponsored and non-state actor attacks against critical infrastructure that leads to collateral human damages or loss of life. Also sad to see nothing addressing the serious issue of sovereignty and enforcement (this is as much of a wet noodle as the ICC is especially considering the same relationship those power players have in THAT consideration).

Funny tidbit, the lead Cybersec UN rep from Australia told me one of the most challenging things was negotiating AoC between the Holy See and Iran...

Seriously. This is a surveillance treaty at best. Most notable is that researchers are strictly NOT protected in this treaty. If you transit between hostile nations that you have potential ties in work that acted against the national interests of said country you could wind up arrested. Fair warning to anyone who thinks it's only Russia, China, Iran, and the US who will do it: Australia gave itself the authority to screen every electronic device that enters the country, without any warrant for on the spot and later investigative use, as a condition of entry.

This is a very sad time for privacy, safety, and security in the community of professionals who work and travel internationally.

kusogames

Quote:
"Article 11: Misuse of devices
1. Each State Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally and without right:

(a) The obtaining, production, sale, procurement for use, import, distribution or otherwise making available of:

(i) A device, including a program, designed or adapted primarily for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in accordance with articles 7 to 10 of this Convention; or
(ii) A password, access credentials, electronic signature or similar data by which the whole or any part of an information and communications technology system is capable of being accessed;
with the intent that the device, including a program, or the password, access credentials, electronic signature or similar data be used for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in accordance with articles 7 to 10 of this Convention; and

(b) The possession of an item referred to in paragraph 1 (a) (i) or (ii) of this article, with intent that it be used for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in accordance with articles 7 to 10 of this Convention.

2. This article shall not be interpreted as imposing criminal liability where the obtaining, production, sale, procurement for use, import, distribution or otherwise making available, or the possession referred to in paragraph 1 of this article is not for the purpose of committing an offence established in accordance with articles 7 to 10 of this Convention, such as for the authorized testing or protection of an information and communications technology system.

3. Each State Party may reserve the right not to apply paragraph 1 of this article, provided that the reservation does not concern the sale, distribution or otherwise making available of the items referred to in paragraph 1 (a) (ii) of this article."

So does Tor, hashcat, a certain orange-white-colored electromagnetic waves gadget that's dead simple but exposes stupidly-secured cars (I forgot its name), and even ham radio equipments counts?

KhaiSang247

Jack1101111

I actually find myself more worried, as someone mentioned earlier, about how agreements like this can lead to an expansion of state surveillance. It’s one thing to target real cybercriminals, but it’s another when the same tools and legal frameworks are used to monitor ordinary people, journalists, and researchers. That part of this convention makes me uneasy.

Reasonable-Truth-506

No, the human rights groups have actually read the UN Convention Against Cybercrime and concluded it looks horrible.  Actually many were probably involved in trying to make it less bad, but lost against the fascists. 

[https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/10/24/joint-statement-on-the-signing-of-the-un-convention-on-cybercrime](https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/10/24/joint-statement-on-the-signing-of-the-un-convention-on-cybercrime)

Shoddy-Childhood-511

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linuxhiker

Convention is overreaching, draconian and dystopian. Impressive.

letsreticulate

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And naive people are still saying all these new shitty digital laws governments and EU pass don't have any evil intentions or global connections to a worldwide mass oppression scheme.

hamstar_potato

oh. troede kun det var vesten der havde fået den slags hjerneblødninger på det sidste. havde ikke set det var kommet så langt

Routine-Gear-6899

Aftalen blev oprindeligt forslået af Rusland. Den er så blevet modificeret af samtlige lande, men i sit første udkast stod der ting i den som lyder meget som den censurstat de har i rusland, til at lukke munden på kilder man ikke bryder sig om.

Men den ligger ved FN og vil erstatte Budapest konventionen. Den er allerede vedtaget November 2024 og afventer bare ratificering fra nationerne.

linkenski

The UN has launched its first Cybercrime Convention aimed at creating a universal framework to combat online crimes.

UN Cybercrime Convention

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

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What the people want