Office of the Attorney-General Suvavou House Suva February 2020 CYBERCRIME BILL 2020 ________ EXPLANATORY NOTE (This note is not part of the Bill and is intended only to indicate its general effect) 1.0 BACKGROUND 1.1 In 2016, the Fijian Government launched its Cyber security strategy which inter alia provided for cybercrime legislation to be developed in order to enable cyber issues and in particular cybercrime offences to be prosecuted in Fiji. 1.2 The International Convention on Cybercrime (‘Budapest Convention’) provides guidance on legislative requirements and in particular provides avenues for member States to have access to information as well as encourages information sharing on a wider platform that would greatly assist Fiji in this area. 1.3 The Cybercrime Bill 2019 (‘Bill’) therefore seeks to align to the requirements under the Budapest Convention and introduces new provisions on substantive cybercrime offences, procedural requirements, remedies in relation to cybercrime offences, the collection of electronic evidence and international cooperation for this purpose. 1.4 The Bill introduces specific provisions on offences against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and computer systems such as unauthorised access to and unauthorised interception of, computer systems or computer data. Other computerrelated and content-related offences included in the Bill are computer related forgery, computer related fraud and child pornography. 1.5 The Bill also enables the investigation and prosecution of such offences and introduces procedural measures for the collection of evidence in electronic form particularly for real time collection of data and expedited preservation of stored computer data. 2.0 CLAUSES 2.1 The Bill consists of 7 parts and 36 clauses. 2.2 Part 1 of the Bill provides the preliminary provisions. 2.3 Clause 1 of the Bill provides for the short title and commencement. If passed by Parliament, the new legislation will come into force on a date or dates appointed by the Minister by notice in the Gazette. 25