A law proposal to criminalise the organised targeting of people on social media and the publishing of their or their families’ personal data won broad support at the House Legal Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The Law Office of the Republic said penalties should be five years or more, and police backed a five-year penalty, so that investigators can obtain IP address data.
AKEL and ALMA expressed some reservations about the proposal, tabled by parliament member Fotini Tsiridou, but all the services involved backed its aims. The committee will begin examining it article by article next Wednesday.
Tsiridou told the committee that organised harassment and intimidation threatened privacy, personal safety and human dignity and should concern everyone, and that parliament had to deal with the publishing of personal details. The proposal strengthens the existing legal framework and aims to criminalise organised targeting, not to target anyone, she said.
“With the proposal we clearly do not touch freedom of expression in the slightest,” she said.
Asked by AKEL parliament member Andreas Pasiourtides whether simply publishing someone’s home address would be an offence, Andreas Aristidou, representing the Law Office, said the relevant article requires a post to put the person at real and serious risk, not merely mention them. Tsiridou told Pasiourtides that an online news outlet writing articles against a parliament member would not be covered, since there would have to be a reasonably serious risk to the person.
ALMA parliament member Michalis Paraskeva urged caution, saying hate speech was constantly seen on online media. He pointed to the “Mafia State” case, in which he said a journalist is accused of harassment, as an example of how harassing behaviour is defined in practice.
“I fear we will open Pandora’s box, because people will be targeted,” he said, adding that he wanted the authorities to genuinely enforce the law rather than simply pursue individuals.
Aristidou said the proposal widens the range of offences to cover more modern forms of harassment, but asked for clearer definitions of ‘information and communications technology medium’ and ‘conduct’. Investigating the offences would require access to electronic data, especially IP addresses, which is why the penalties should be five years or more, he said. He also stressed the need to safeguard freedom of expression.
Andreas Anastasiades, assistant head of the Crime Combating Department at police headquarters, backed the proposal, saying many people had complained of being victims of such behaviour, but asked for the offences to be better defined. He agreed the penalty should rise to five years so that orders for IP addresses could be issued. Anonymity through VPNs and the dark web is a concern worldwide, but police need the tools to investigate, he added.
A representative of the Ministry of Justice and Public Order said the ministry supports the proposal’s aims. It is transposing an EU directive that affects 12 laws and, among other things, is studying a bill on stalking, she said, recommending that the proposal and the transposition be handled at the same time since they cover the same issues.
Lawyers supported the proposal and asked that artificial intelligence and AI agents also be considered, as they could be used for illegal purposes and to post continuously. Their representative, Pantelis Christofides, noted that the Cypriot justice system has no jurisdiction over Google or other platforms, and pointed to agreements that would allow the authorities to lawfully obtain data to protect citizens.
A representative of the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy also welcomed the proposal, saying the digital environment should protect users, and referred to the recent approval of a protection plan for underage users.
