Impact of cyber technologies on the mechanism of commission of other crimes

ENThe purpose of the presentation is to unfold the importance of the use of cyber technologies on the mechanism of commission of other criminal acts and to show how this also impacts the qualification of acts. The presentation objectives: to highlight the potential points of contact between crimes against property and cyber crimes, explore the possibilities of qualifying criminal acts on the theoretical level and the problems in case law, provide proposals on the possibilities of establishing new properties of crime elements. Cyber crimes, differently to crimes against property, are new generation crimes targeting an object existing on the electronic space. There are still discussions ongoing in the doctrine on the single definition and categories of the crime of this type. Cyber crimes may be classified into crimes when the computer is used as a supporting instrument (computer assisted crimes) and into computer focused crimes. One of the most common types of crimes on the electronic space – cyber-deception and theft means actions on the electronic space when financial valuables, e.g., banking card numbers, login passwords, personal data, are stolen or acquired through deceit. The fight against online crimes where payment instruments or their data are used is one of the priorities of the EU law enforcement. Practical examples show that electronic payment instruments or their data are often acquired, in particular, for the commission of crimes against property (e.g., seizure).When such crimes are being committed, electronic payment instruments and other data, which are not the subject-matter of crimes against property, are stolen together with another person's property and are later used for the commission of financial operations on the electronic space. That gives rise to controversial questions and problems pertaining to the legal assessment of criminal acts by concurrence and related to delimitation of the subject-matter which results in case law differences. Considering the developments of new technologies on the electronic space, the presentation also explores the issue of legal assessment of such cases when the offender, making use of different remote computer control equipment (e.g., drones, robots), exerts the impact of violence on the victim thereby overcoming the victim's will to resist and facilitating access to the targeted property. The existence of such cases in practice makes reconsider whether the provisions of the present Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania are adequate for proper legal assessment of such situations and make proposals to the legislator concerning the introduction of new qualifying attributes in the elements of property crimes. [From the publication]