Legislating against Cyber Crime in Southern African Development Community: Balancing International Standards with Country-Specific Specificities

Abstract

The growing threat of cyber crime has prompted a global call for countries to enact domestic cyber crime legislations as the first step in the fight against the vice. The predominantly transnational nature of cyber crime requires that domestic legislation must be harmonized in order to eliminate cyber crime safe havens and facilitate effective international cooperation. Simultaneously, it is imperative that such legislation must be diversified in order to address and incorporate country-specific challenges and needs. Balancing the competing needs for harmonization and diversification is, therefore, one of the major challenges when enacting domestic cyber crime legislations. This three-part article investigates whether, and to what extent, the legislations of three select countries of the Southern African Development Community (i.e., Botswana's Cyber crime and Computer Related Crimes Act, Tanzania's Cyber crimes Act and Malawi's Electronic Transactions and Cyber security Act) are balancing the two needs. This article examines the substantive law provisions of the three legislations, particularly the cyber crime offences against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computers systems and data.