The UK government wants to come down harder on serious cybercriminals.
In the Queen’s Speech, her address to Parliament that lays out government agenda, Queen Elizabeth II outlined the administration’s plan for a serious computer crime bill, The Telegraph reports.
It would mete out life sentences for "cyberattacks which result in loss of life, serious illness or injury or serious damage to national security, or a significant risk thereof."
The Daily Mail reports the UK government now rates such attacks as a Tier One threat -- second only to nuclear and chemical attacks or overseas invasion in terms of severity.
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Critics worry this would overlap with existing laws that punish serious crimes, and would have a chilling effect on security research. One analyst told The Guardian that it's “concerning that the law designed to protect people from cybercrime also penalises activity designed to identify areas of cyber risk.”
The closest analogy in the U.S. would be the Computer Fraud and Abuse act, which can also match severe computer crimes with life imprisonment. But that law, too, has faced recent criticism for being too broad.
The UK’s proposal, meanwhile, would overhaul the country’s Computer Misuse Act, which was originally established in 1990.