Information Security News: Saudi Arabia sets jail penalties for cybercrimes

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL2669502020070326

March 26, 2007

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Monday it will impose 1-year 
prison sentences and fines of 500,000 riyals ($133,000) for Internet 
hacking and misuse of mobile telephone cameras, such as taking 
unauthorized pictures.

The cabinet said in a statement it approved a bill on information 
technology crimes proposed last year by the kingdom's quasi-parliament, 
the advisory Shura assembly.

The measure is to go to the king for ratification.

The bill would penalize "illegal entry into an Internet site or entering 
a site in order to change its design, destroy it or amend it", it said 
in a statement published by state media.

It also defines as a crime "infringing upon private lives through misuse 
of mobile telephones equipped with cameras and similar devices with the 
purpose of defaming or harming people".

Camera phones have been opposed by religious police in conservative 
Saudi Arabia, which imposes a strict form of Islamic law. The country 
banned the sale of the devices for several months in 2004.

But the restrictions have failed to stop the spread of the latest 
technological fashions in a country of 24 million with high per capita 
income and a burgeoning youth population.

The state strictly controls the use of the Internet by tracking users 
and blocking sexual and some political content. Some Internet forums 
used by liberal reformers and Islamist extremists have been stopped.

Copyright Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.


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