Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012

Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012
Congress of the Philippines
An Act Defining Cybercrime, Prevention, Investigation, Suppression and the Imposition of Penalties Therefor and for Other Purposes
Citation	Republic Act No. 10175
Territorial extent	Philippines
Enacted by	House of Representatives of the Philippines
Date enacted	June 4, 2012
Enacted by	Senate of the Philippines
Date enacted	June 5, 2012
Date signed	September 12, 2012
Signed by	Benigno Aquino III
Date commenced	October 3, 2012
Legislative history
Bill introduced in the House of Representatives of the Philippines	An Act Defining Cybercrime, Providing for the Prevention, Suppression and Imposition of Penalties Therefor and for Other Purposes
Bill citation	House Bill 5808
Bill published on	February 9, 2012
Introduced by	Susan Yap (Tarlac)
First reading	February 13, 2012
Second reading	May 9, 2012
Third reading	May 21, 2012
Conference committee bill passed	June 4, 2012
Committee report	Joint Explanation of the Conference Committee on the Disagreeing Provisions of Senate Bill No. 2796 and House Bill No. 5808
Bill introduced in the Senate of the Philippines	An Act Defining Cybercrime, Providing for Prevention, Investigation and Imposition of Penalties Therefor and for Other Purposes
Bill citation	Senate Bill 2796
Bill published on	May 3, 2011
Introduced by	Edgardo Angara
First reading	May 3, 2011
Second reading	January 24, 2012
Third reading	January 30, 2012
Conference committee bill passed	June 5, 2012
Date passed by conference committee	May 30, 2012
Keywords
Aiding and abetting, defamation, fraud, obscenity, trespass to chattels
Status: In force

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, officially recorded as Republic Act No. 10175, is a law in the Philippines approved on September 12, 2012. It aims to address legal issues concerning online interactions and the Internet in the Philippines. Among the cybercrime offenses included in the bill are cybersquatting, cybersex, child pornography, identity theft, illegal access to data and libel.

While hailed for penalizing illegal acts done via the Internet that were not covered by old laws, the act has been criticized for its provision on criminalizing libel, which is perceived to be a curtailment in freedom of expression.

On October 9, 2012, the Supreme Court of the Philippines issued a temporary restraining order, stopping implementation of the Act for 120 days, and extended it on 5 February 2013 "until further orders from the court."

On May 24, 2013, The DOJ announced that the contentious online libel provisions of the law had been dropped.

On February 18, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that section 5 of the law decision was constitutional, and that sections 4-C-3, 7, 12 and 19 were unconstitutional.

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 is the first law in the Philippines which specifically criminalizes computer crime, which prior to the passage of the law had no strong legal precedent in Philippine jurisprudence. While laws such as the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000 (Republic Act No. 8792) regulated certain computer-related activities, these laws did not provide a legal basis for criminalizing crimes committed on a computer in general: for example, Onel de Guzman, the computer programmer charged with purportedly writing the ILOVEYOU computer worm, was ultimately not prosecuted by Philippine authorities due to a lack of legal basis for him to be charged under existing Philippine laws at the time of his arrest.

The first draft of the law started in 2001 under the Legal and Regulatory Committee of the former Information Technology and eCommerce Council (ITECC) which is the forerunner of the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT). It was headed by former Secretary Virgilio "Ver" Peña and the Committee was chaired by Atty. Claro Parlade (+). It was an initiative of the Information Security and Privacy Sub-Committee chaired by Albert Dela Cruz who was the President of PHCERT together with then Anti-Computer Crime and Fraud Division Chief, Atty. Elfren Meneses of the NBI. The administrative and operational functions was provided by the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) acting as the CICT secretariat.

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