The Council of Europe Budapest Convention on Cybercrime
Publication date: January 06, 2026
At the turn of the 21st century, technologies were gaining significant importance. Information technology was the fastest-growing influence on the lives of ordinary people, as more and more services became digitized, automated, and transferred to cyberspace. These included, for example, correspondence and electronic communication, such as email, developed from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. Banking, financial services, were also introduced electronically in the 1970s and 1980s, as were the sharing of works of art and the storage of various data in digital form. These services are linked to key areas of our lives, such as economics, privacy, and security. These same areas also attract criminals of various kinds, many of them members of organized crime groups or terrorist and sabotage groups, but not exclusively. Their activities are referred to, primarily colloquially, as cybercrime. However, this term presents significant challenges in defining its meaning, as it evolves with technological advancements. However, in criminal law, the requirement of legal certainty must be met, linked to the principle that there is no crime without law. For this reason, various attempts are being made to develop such a definition.
