Cybercrime in the DRC

Despite the implementation of the Digital Code and all its legal advances, the fight against cybercrime remains a major challenge in the DRC. Computer attacks, data theft, cyberstalking, invasion of privacy, online fraud, etc. continue to grow at an alarming rate, with no parallel in terms of scale, resulting in impunity for cybercrime in the DRC. Of course, this impunity is far from being simply the result of the exponential growth in cybercrime; it is also the product of the Code's failure to determine the procedure for prosecuting cyberinfringements. As a result, the Digital Code straddles the line between ordinary criminal procedure and military criminal procedure, even though all these procedures seem to have been overtaken by this new form of criminality. The Code's ineffectiveness is also due to the innovative nature of the bodies empowered to prosecute cybercrimes, and their organizational and even logistical inadequacy with regard to the standards of cybercrime repression. Such a reading points to the need for systemic reform of the Code.