Technology has greatly impacted communication, medicine, education and cyber warfare by providing easy access to information and instant communication globally, but has also caused issues like loss of privacy and challenges for law enforcement. Policing cyber crimes is difficult due to legal jurisdictions, anonymity, and challenges around evidence tampering and victims not reporting crimes. The rights of both victims and perpetrators are also difficult to enforce in these situations.

1. Technology & The Law
Charles McCann, Jacob Sleiman & Max Tassell

2. Impacts
Technology’s
impact has been
immense, with
advancements in
communication,
medicine,
education and
cyber warfare.

3. Impacts
It has given people easy
access to information,
instant communication
to another person
across the globe, rapid
media output and
immediate feedback on
projects such as
videos, reports, games
and so on.

4. Impacts
Amongst these
advancements,
many issues have
arisen that have
made policing said
technologies a
tiresome and
expensive ordeal.

5. Impacts
These include the loss
of privacy, lack of
territorial jurisdiction
(making it especially
difficult for the
government to police
cyber crimes), greater
vulnerability to cyber
crimes and anonymity.

6. Impact on the Victim
For the victim of a cyber
crime, technology’s
impact is remarkable as
the victim, in some
cases, doesn’t always
receive a just form of
compensation to them
and a fair punishment
to the perpetrator.
Because of
technology’s
considerable
breadth, finding
the perpetrator
in the first place
is a tough job in
and of itself.

7. Impact on the Perpetrator
As for the perpetrator, if
they’re caught, their
reputation is at stake of
being permanently
tarnished. Their actions
in the digital world have
real and concerning
results in the real world.
If they aren’t
caught however,
their free, as a
result of the
accessibility of
technology, to
roam around
causing havoc.
The government
will almost
always be one
step behind
these people.

8. Enforcing the Law
Policing the internet
is a tremendously
tiresome task as
factors including
legal jurisdictions for
governments,
anonymity and the
ethical and legal
issues regarding
surveillance.

9. Unlike real-life crimes and the
subsequent evidence, the evidence in
a cyber crime case can be much more
easily tampered with as it’s all
essentially a string of ones and zeros.
Enforcing the Law
An investigator can contaminate the
evidence simply by examining it, and
sophisticated cyber criminals can set
up their computers to automatically
destroy the evidence when accessed
by anyone other than themselves.

10. Enforcing the Law
The rights of the victim are
particularly difficult to enforce
as more times than not, they
aren’t aware that the cyber
crime has occurred to them,
thus reports aren’t made.
More times than not though,
victims don’t report cases of
cyber crime as they’ll be seen
as embarrassing or
commercially damaging.

11. Enforcing the Law
The rights of the
perpetrator are, too,
especially difficult to
enforce as they may
fall victim to unethical
police tactics such as
entrapment and
unkown surveillance.

12. Case: Overview
In 2011, David Noel Cecil was charged on forty
counts of hacking into systems owned by Platform
Networks. He obtained the usernames and
passwords of the managing director.

13. For this, David was sentenced to 6 months in
jail on 18 charges and another 2 years on the
remaining 22 charges.
Case: Overview

14. Case: Legal Implications
He pleaded guilty to 2
counts of, “Unauthorised
modification of data to
cause impairment
pursuant” to Section 477.2
of the Criminal Code and 18
counts of, “Unauthorised
access to data pursuant” to
Section 478.1 of the
Criminal Code.