Nigeria, home to some of the world's most notorious cyber crimes, has proposed a law making spamming a criminal offence for which senders of unsolicited emails could be jailed for at least three years. The draft law identifies the use of computers for fraud, spamming, identity theft, child pornography and terrorism as criminal offences punishable by jail terms of between six months and five years, and fines of 10,000 naira ($77) to one million naira ($7,700). Under the bill, which has to be approved by the National Assembly to become law, convicted spammers face jail terms of three to five years and could also be made to hand the proceeds of crime to the government. "Any person spamming electronic messages to recipients with whom he has no previous relationship commits an offence," said a section of the draft law obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
Under the proposed law, service providers who aid and abet cyber crimes and fail to cooperate with law enforcement agents could be fined between 500,000 and 10 million naira. The draft law empowers law enforcement agents to enter and search any premises or computer and arrest any person in connection with an offence.