Unfortunately Cyprus is well behind on dealing with internet crimes and especially crimes related to child pornography. To date, all cases cracked have been solved by foreign organizations, mainly Interpol and the FBI.

The main obstacle that Cyprus faces is that the police do not have the ability to investigate these cases without clashing with the privacy laws concerning telecommunications. When the Cypriot government signed the Budapest convention on fighting child pornography they didn’t realize that this would prove to be a difficult task to adhere to. The Cypriot law states that communication services are not allowed to disclose personal information. The only way authorities have been able to make arrests is when the material was found on the actual hard disc of the suspect’s computer or on CDs.

To date, only 2 individuals have been convicted for child pornography. One was given a 6 month jail sentence with parole and the other one was fined 1000 CYP (€1700).

A specific section of the Police Department is being set up in order to face this phenomenon. They are developing a special internet crime unit, which will deal exclusively with child pornography. For this team, 12 police officers have already been chosen and in April the FBI will be training another 40 officers. All officers chosen for this task speak fluent English and have extensive knowledge on the use of internet and computer technology.

In the meantime, the Cypriot Safer Internet Awareness Node “Cyberethics” has launched its activities island-wide. Panel discussions are scheduled to take place at all major municipalities throughout 2007. Furthermore, the Family Planning Association is planning a series of open forum discussions in a number of schools.

Anna-Maria Drousiotou, CyberEthics

Information based on article published in Politis newspaper