54 7.3.19 While the issue arises in dealing with illegal or inappropriate content or with the new types of crime that electronic communication fosters, the form and procedures for lawful access are important in combating crime of any nature. Not surprisingly, lawful access provisions are among the most controversial in the fight against cyber-crime and for policing authorities operating in a cyber-environment. “Lawful access” or authorised access refers to how law enforcement agencies will intercept and search and seize electronic information. This applies, of course, not only to information about cyber-crime, but also to information about other criminal activity. Lawful, in the sense of being authorised, access is an essential tool to criminal investigations (and, with appropriate safeguards, regulatory investigations) and “wiretapping” has been used for scores of years. National security concerns have raised the importance and profile of these issues. In jurisdictions operating with a strong tradition of the Rule of Law, independent authorisation (often from a court) is required for information interception. Rapidly changing technologies, however, create a significant challenge to authorities wanting to carry out effective investigations. 7.3.20 The implementation of Maitlamo is intended, among other objectives, to draw investment and business to Botswana. It is important, therefore, that the Government look to international norms in establishing any new regime for lawful access. These include independent authorisation of interception and mechanisms for accountability for activities or behaviour that intrudes on the privacy of citizens and businesses operating in Botswana. 7.3.21 The EU Convention on Cybercrime does not require any specific lawful access procedures since the Convention will be implemented through domestic European legislation. It does, however, deal with procedural powers relating to data preservation, production, search and seizure, and real time collection. There are some fine distinctions of language that must be considered in developing any Botswana policies that rely on the Convention; for example, preservation of data means to keep data that already exists while retention of data means to keep for the future data that is currently being generated. One can certainly see situations where either or both powers would be useful or necessary, but lawful access provisions such as these have implications for network design and costs to ISPs and others in the system that need to be considered in policy development. It is also important to remember that communication data collection (e.g., e-mails) always involves intrusion on at least two parties, one of whom may be entirely innocent of any suspicion of wrongdoing. There may also be different levels of information that can be obtained: for example, the name of a URL versus the data on the URL itself.