Sixty-five countries signed a landmark United Nations Convention against Cybercrime in Hanoi, Vietnam on October 25 2025, marking the first major global effort to counter digital crimes like online scams, non-consensual image sharing and trafficking of illicit content.
The treaty, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2024, provides a universal legal framework enabling signatory states to criminalise cyber-enabled offences, share electronic evidence across borders and operate a 24/7 channel for law-enforcement cooperation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the convention was “a powerful, legally-binding instrument to strengthen our collective defences against cybercrime.” He added that “no country, regardless of its level of development, will be left defenceless in the face of cybercrime.”
Key crimes covered by the treaty include phishing and ransomware attacks, large-scale fraud, the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images (sometimes called “revenge porn”), money-laundering and other ICT-enabled offences. For the first time, an international treaty explicitly addresses the misuse of technology to exploit victims through image-based abuse.
However, the treaty has drawn criticism from tech-firms and civil-liberties groups, who warn that its broad language and cross-border evidence-sharing clauses could be used by authoritarian regimes to justify surveillance and restrict freedoms. The Electronic Frontier Foundation described it as “a surveillance treaty” unless stronger human-rights safeguards are built in.
The convention will enter into force once at least 40 states ratify it. Countries signing in Hanoi now face internal legislative processes to adopt domestic laws compatible with the treaty’s obligations. .
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