Criminal Law Reform Now Network: Follow-on Impact (Computer Misuse Act)

刑法改革现在网络(CLRNN)成立于2017年，目的是促进学者和其他法律专家之间的合作，讨论、起草和向更广泛的社会传播可理解的刑法改革建议。我们的研究联系人包括公众和主流媒体成员以及法律和行业专业人士、警察、政策制定者和政客。我们立即将滥用电脑和私人起诉确定为改革的优先领域，事实上，四年后，这两个项目都是政府内部的重要议程。CLRNN得到了AHRC Network Grant的资助。2020年1月22日，我们在威斯敏斯特发布了我们第一个项目的成果--改革1990年《计算机滥用法案》(Reating The Computer Misuse Act 1990)。报告提出了几项改革建议，包括对主要立法中的核心罪行/抗辩、CPS指南、量刑指南提出建议，并强调了民事处罚的可能性。目前的后续资金申请集中在改革主要立法--1990年《计算机滥用法》(CMA)的可能性上。自从内政大臣在2021年5月11日宣布应该修订和修改CMA以来，这一问题变得更加紧迫。现有的黑客罪行最初是在CMA中起草的，以反映一种过时的观点，即未经授权访问他人的计算机总是有害的。但网站所有者可能会被认为可能会拒绝访问，即使他们的网站存在漏洞，可能会被黑客侵略性地利用。今天的网络安全取决于这样一种理解，即网站所有者在允许漏洞持续存在方面不应拥有绝对发言权；实际上，一些受到攻击的网站将由网络犯罪分子运行，他们没有理由授权任何测试。警方和国家犯罪局也无法应对保护互联网安全免受网络威胁的工作量。因此，授权网络安全专家进行测试，既可以关闭漏洞，也可以检测威胁来源，这是最好的前进道路。但CMA中没有这样的框架，负责任的专家也根本没有为符合公共利益的行为辩护。在我们的报告起草期间，我们与网络安全代表密切合作，以了解当前法律对他们行业工作的寒蝉效应(例如，要么限制他们可以提供的服务；要么冒着被指控为犯罪行为的风险)。在我们的报告中，我们建议建立一个新的公共利益辩护。政府目前对改革廉政公署的兴趣更为广泛，包括建立新的判刑制度，但我们在报告中也预料到了许多突出的问题；如果立法改革即将到来，刑罚更严厉，我们认为廉政公署将希望相应地修改自己的检控政策，因此，我们在报告中关于廉政公署政策的工作可能也需要进一步传播和解释。NCC集团是我们这次后续竞标的项目合作伙伴，作为CMA改革(Cyber-Up Campaign)的行业倡导者。到目前为止，他们的网络行动似乎对政府产生了最大的影响，他们承认了我们在这一过程中的贡献。但他们的努力需要法律投入，包括在会议上。因此，我们寻求后续资金，用于我们的网络调解人继续协调会议和研究简报的工作，以及将于2021年底在剑桥大学主办的影响活动，以重新吸引我们的主要政治利益攸关方，并重新强调改革的法律和学术理由。明年看起来可能是改革的关键一年，我们热切希望我们迄今的工作应产生最大影响。

The Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRNN) was launched in 2017 in order to facilitate collaboration between academics and other legal experts to discuss, draft and disseminate comprehensible proposals for criminal law reform to the wider community. Our research contacts include members of the public and mainstream media as well as legal and industry professionals, police, policymakers, and politicians. We immediately established computer misuse and private prosecutions as priority areas for reform, and indeed, four years later, both items are high on the agenda within government. CLRNN has been funded by an AHRC Network Grant.On 22 January 2020, we launched at Westminster (and published open-access) the outcome of our first project, Reforming the Computer Misuse Act 1990. The report makes several recommendations for reform, including to the core offences/defences in the primary legislation, to CPS guidance, to sentencing guidelines, and highlighted the potential for civil penalties. The current follow-on funding bid focuses on the possibilities of reform of the primary legislation, the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA). This has become more urgent since the Home Secretary announced on 11 May 2021 that the CMA should be revised and amended.Existing 'hacking' offences were originally drafted in the CMA to reflect an outdated view that unauthorised access to another's computer is always harmful. But site owners may be thought likely to deny access even though there are vulnerabilities in their site which may enable them to be used aggressively by hackers. Cyber security today depends upon an understanding that site owners should not have an absolute say in allowing vulnerabilities to persist; indeed some compromised sites will be run by cyber criminals who have no reason to authorise any testing. Nor can the police and National Crime Agency cope with the workload in keeping the internet safe from cyber threats. So, licensing cyber security experts to conduct tests, both to close down vulnerabilities and to detect sources of threats, is the best way forward. But there is no such framework in the CMA and no defence at all for responsible experts to act in the public interest. During the drafting of our report, we worked closely with cyber security representatives to understand the chilling effect that the current law has on work in their industry (e.g, either limiting the services they can provide; or risking prosecution for arguably criminal acts). In our Report, we propose the creation of a new public interest defence. The government's present interest in reforming the CMA goes wider, including a new sentencing regime, but we have anticipated many of the salient issues here in our Report too; and should legislative reform be coming, with harsher sentences, we think that the CPS will wish to revise their own prosecutions policies accordingly, and so our work on CPS policy within the Report may also need to be further disseminated and explained. The NCC Group are our project partners in this follow-on bid, as an industry based advocate for CMA Reform (Cyber-Up Campaign). Their Cyber-Up Campaign appears to have had the most effect on government so far, and they have acknowledged our contributions in the process. But their efforts require legal input, including at meetings. We therefore seek follow-on funding for the continued work of our network facilitator to coordinate meetings and research briefings, as well as for an impact event to be hosted at the University of Cambridge at the end of 2021 to re-engage our primary political stakeholders and re-emphasise the legal and academic case for reform. The next year looks likely to be critical for reform and we are keen that our work to date should have maximum impact.