Online child sexual exploitation: a new MIS challenge

© 2021, Association for Information Systems. All rights reserved. This paper deals with the difficult yet increasingly important MIS phenomenon of online child sexual exploitation (online CSE). Through the use of secondary and publicly available data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as primary data from a cybercrime police unit in the United Kingdom, this study takes a grounded theory approach and organizes the role that technologies and social actors play in shaping online CSE. The paper contributes to IS theory by providing a consolidated model for online CSE, which we call the technology and imagery dimensions model. This model combines the staging of the phenomenon and the key dimensions that depict how the use of technology and imagery both fuels and defuses the phenomenon. In informing the construction of the model, the paper extracts, organizes, and generalizes the affordances of technology and discusses the role of information systems in detecting online CSE

Complying with international prison law? Prison discipline in Belgium and France

The number of international prison standards has risen steadily during the last decades. More than 20 international instruments now stipulate how to enforce prison discipline. Said instruments should ensure that prison conditions are humane and promote good prison management. Safety, security and discipline in prison require, inter alia, dynamic, alert and trained prison staff, pro-active prison directors and room for conflict resolution mechanisms. Compliance with international standards on prison discipline has been researched in Belgium and France, in law and in practice. The research findings are based on an analysis of legal instruments, policy documents and jurisprudence. These findings are complemented with an empirical research in seven prisons in Belgium and France. Data was gathered using methodological triangulation, mostly by studying prison disciplinary files, attending disciplinary hearings and interviewing detainees, prison officers and prison governors. The presentation highlights major deficiencies with prison discipline in both countries, including the lack of information to prisoners on the prison rules, the lack of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, problems regarding the rules on fact-finding and the burden of proof, and poor detention conditions in solitary confinement. The results are striking as both countries have been through a major legislative reform in 2005

Striking a balance between the secrecy of online communication and online criminal investigation in South Africa

In the Republic of South Africa (‘RSA’), there are exponentially increasing and indeterminable consequential risks and breaches involved in the spontaneous and indispensable personal, official and general anatomic uses of the quicksilver, complex and delicate conscriptive, interoperable, non-compartmentalised and non-passworded compartmentalised online communication devices, technologies, networks, applications, and services. These risks and breaches result in a disequilibrium in the following antithetical legal vector argument. On the one hand, these risks and breaches are attributed to the non-recognition, and inadequate protection of the independent and unique right in online communication, the concept of which originates from the jurisprudence of the broad gamut of the right to privacy. On the other hand, these risks are exacerbated by the increasing, unrestrictive and perpetual techno-legal abuse of online communication by law enforcement agencies or officers (‘LEAs’ or ‘LEOs’) of the alternative conduct of the covert online criminal investigation (‘OCI’) of serious offences, arising from the dearth of and non-compliance with the regulation for the conduct of an OCI. This dual study clinically examines the irreconcilable conflict between the protection of the right in online communication and the public criminal mandate of the State to conduct an OCI of serious offences. Firstly, this study investigates the existence of the levels of risks involved in the conscriptive, interoperable, non-compartmentalised and non-passworded compartmentalised continua of privacy interests in online communication, requiring a corresponding protective and secure regime in the conduct of an OCI. Secondly, it probes into the various substantive and procedural thresholds required in the limitation of the right in online communication when conducting an OCI. Lastly, it examines the mechanisms for institutional and structural independence, competence, due process, separation of powers and checks and balances in the conduct and oversight of the conduct of an OCI in the RSA. Consequently, the examination of the above issues reveals the absence, inadequacy of, and non-compliance with the substantive and procedural constitutional, legislative and policy framework that caters for the protection of the right in online communication and the conduct of an OCI in the RSA. Accordingly and specifically, this study proposes that the RSA adopts an adequate constitutional and single legislative framework to address the contemporary societal techno-legal tapestry in the conflict between the right in online communication and the conduct of an OCI of serious offences in the RSA as follows. Firstly, it is imperative to unequivocally, in the legal framework in the RSA, including the Constitution, consider the existence of higher levels of risks and the simultaneous or consequential recognition of the higher levels of protection of the invaluability in online communication —including the emerging quantum computing— in contrast with non-online communications. This contrast hierarchically compels the unimpeachable protection of the independent right to the secrecy of online communication (‘SOC’), which is inadequately and incongruously protected as mere online privacy in section 14 of the Constitution of the RSA. Secondly, it is equally crucial to consider the application of or compliance with adequate substantive and procedural scientific threshold requirements to conduct an OCI of serious offences in the RSA. These requirements include the application of: online conscription; section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act; ‘no server, but law’ principle as opposed to the U.S. ‘no server, no law’ principle; robotic and non-robotic OCI; ex-parte and non-ex-parte verbal and written quadripartite techno-legal individual and mass online criminal investigation of privileged and non-privileged online communications by ghost and non-ghost applicants; pre and post OCI data management procedure and admissibility of void and voidable evidence. Furthermore, it is of great importance to apply the all-embracing proportionality principle in section 36 of the Constitution in which this study, from a contrarian belief, classifies serious offences into six categories under four criteria and propounds some definite and functional Popoola mathematical and non-mathematical formulae in the standard of proof required to conduct an OCI, the procedure of which should be incorporated in a legislation. Thirdly and finally, it is of utmost significance to, in the legal framework in the RSA, including the Constitution, consider the application of or compliance with safeguard mechanisms in the conduct of an OCI. These mechanisms are to ensure the inviolability of the principles or requirements of structural and institutional independence, competence, due process, separation of powers and checks and balances in the conduct and oversight of the conduct of an OCI of serious offences by LEAs or LEOs and other stakeholders respectively.Public, Constitutional, and International LawLL. D

A investigação económica, financeira e tributária da criminalidade organizada transnacional na União Europeia

After the repetition of a historic event that endangered the stability and integrity of the nations and societies that constitute the Old Continent, it was recognized that the pathway should be their progressive unification by means of Law. This gradual process culminated with the constitution of a European Union composed by twenty-eight Member States inside twelve specific areas of shared competence In this common territory gradually increasing as long as new countries were included, a set of measures were adopted in order to liberalize their citizens, goods, capital, services and information movments, to partially abolish their internal borders and to unify their monetary and economic markets. However, the ius puniendi and consequent criminal jurisdiction attached to each Member State remained limited to its sovereign territory. In this context allied with the expansion of information, communication and knowledge technologies — where we highlight the internet expansion divided on the superficial, deep and dark net — it submerged a new territorial delimitation devoid of any state or international regulation: the transnational territory and the cyberspace. Criminal organizations as autonomous, structured, rational, polymorphic, flexible and adaptable entities, directed exclusively to the maximization of their own profits, power and legitimacy, awared of this jurisdictional vacuum and the opportunities therein, have shifted into this new space and became a transnational and cybernetic phenomenon that any individual Member State could control. With the growing incapacity feeling, Member States, through the European Union and the previous communities, have built the European Criminal Law, as a branch of Transnational Criminal Law, with a scope for transnational space and phenomena. Despite the proliferation of European legislative acts and political measures, transnational criminal organizations have expanded towards diversification and specialization. Notwithstanding these dynamics, all criminal organizations converge on the crime economy. In this sequence, it is recognized that economic, financial and tax investigation represents the most efficient methodology to neutralize them. Alongside criminal organizations, this research methodology is inevitably transnational and cybernetics, thereby, is based on and is conformed to the only legal order applicable: the European Criminal Law. However, this legal framework is considered inadequate for the full accomplishment of its purposes by ratione auctoritatis, materiae, personae, loci and temporis. It is therefore inferred that there is any single supranational competence, based on a substantive and adjective law, a single institutional structure and information system, for the transnational and cybernetic phenomena control and regulation in the European transnational territory and cyberspace. Economic, financial and tax investigation on transnational organized crime, however, demands from European Criminal Law to provide this legitimating and limiting legal framework in order to pursue this phenomenon where it is increasingly comfortable and in expansion. Keywords: European Union, Area of Liberty, Security and Justice, European Criminal Law, transnacional criminal organizations, tax, economic and financial crime, and tax, economic and financial investigation.Após a repetição de um evento histórico que colocou em risco as nações e sociedades que constituem o Velho Continente, reconheceu-se que o caminho seria a sua unificação por via do Direito. Este gradual percurso culminou na constituição de uma União Europeia a vinte e oito Estados-Membros com doze áreas específicas de competência partilhada. Neste espaço territorial comum, foram adotadas medidas que liberalizaram a circulação, aboliram parcialmente as suas fronteiras internas e unificaram os mercados monetários e económicos. Contudo, o ius puniendi adstrito a cada Estado-Membro manteve-se circunscrito ao seu território. Neste contexto aliado à globalização, expansão das tecnologias da informação, comunicação e conhecimento — onde se destaca a internet desmaterializada na superficial, deep e dark net — submergiram e amplificaram-se novas delimitações territoriais desprovidas de qualquer controlo estadual ou internacional: o território transnacional e o ciberespaço. As organizações criminosas, enquanto entes autónomos, estruturados, racionais, polimórficos, flexíveis e adaptáveis, dirigidas exclusivamente à maximização dos lucros, poder e legitimidade, cientes deste vazio jurisdicional e das oportunidades nele existente, deslocaram-se para estes novos espaços, passando a tornar-se um fenómeno transnacional e cibernético que nenhuma soberania, individualmente, conseguiria atingir. Com um crescente sentimento de impotência, os Estados-Membros, por via da União Europeia e das demais comunidades que previamente a constituíram, construíram o Direito Penal Europeu, com um âmbito de aplicação para o espaço e fenómeno transnacionais. Apesar da multiplicação de atos legislativos e de medidas políticas europeias, as organizações criminosas transnacionais expandiram-se em direção à diversificação e especialização. Não obstante estas dinâmicas, as mesmas convergem na economia do crime, sendo, assim, reconhecido que a investigação económica, financeira e tributária representa a metodologia mais eficiente de combate. A par das organizações criminosas, esta metodologia de investigação é inevitavelmente transnacional e cibernética, pelo que a mesma se fundamenta e conforma na única ordem jurídica aplicável: o Direito Penal Europeu. No entanto, este bloco jurídico denota-se desadequado para o cabal cumprimento das suas finalidades por ratione auctoritatis, materiae, personae, loci e temporis. Deduz-se, por conseguinte, que inexiste uma competência supranacional para a regulação e controlo do fenómeno transnacional e cibernético no território transnacional e ciberespaço da União Europeia, com base numa lei substantiva e adjetiva, uma estrutura institucional e um sistema de informação únicos. Ora, a investigação económica, financeira e tributária da criminalidade organizada transnacional exige do Direito Penal Europeu este quadro jurídico legitimador e limitador, de modo a perseguir este fenómeno onde crescentemente se sente confortável e se expande