Bavaria wants to increase the penalties for cyber crime.
In a request from Bavaria for the Justice Ministers' Conference this Thursday and Friday, it says that "cybercrime is increasingly threatening companies, privacy and people's sense of security and has the potential to massively jeopardize the foundations of democracy, the rule of law and the economy".
However, the penalty framework did not reflect the injustice of the acts and could no longer effectively develop their general preventive function.
Helene Bubrowski
Political correspondent in Berlin.
Follow I follow
"It must make a difference in the penal code whether someone spies on the shopping behavior of an individual or attacks hospitals and power plants," said Bavarian Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich (CSU).
He reminded that cyber attacks can lead to supply bottlenecks or significant disruptions to public safety.
"In extreme cases - for example when ventilators fail in clinics - they can even claim human lives," says Eisenreich.
The economic damage is also enormous: Last year, the German economy suffered damage of more than 220 billion euros from cybercrime.
Attempts should also be punishable
Many offenses in the area of cybercrime, such as spying on and intercepting data, stealing data, changing data and computer sabotage, date back to the 1980s, with a maximum of three years in prison.
According to the ideas of the Bavarian government, the penalties for the basic offenses should be increased and adapted to the criminal offenses in the analogue world.
When spying on data or stealing data, the attempt should also be made a criminal offense.
In addition, according to the application, Bavaria wants to provide the law enforcement authorities with suitable investigative tools in order to effectively prosecute attacks on critical infrastructures, for example.
These tools include telecommunications surveillance, online searches, and traffic data collection.