BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Justyna Podlewska - lawyer. A graduate from Faculty of Law and Administration and the Faculty of Journalism and Political Sciences of Warsaw University. She has been giving legal advice to clients of the Nobody’s Children Foundation for ten years. Since 2006 she has been counselling in the Information and Advisory Office (Punkt Informacyjno-Konsultacyjny) in Ursynów, Warsaw. She is an expert on legal protection of child victims, violence prevention and counteraction, family law, personal data protection. She coordinates the Nobody’s Children Foundation legal programme, “Child Victim Advocate” programme and co-coordinates NCF other programmes, such as “Good Parent Good Beginning” and “Helpline.org.pl”.


ABSTRACT

Parallel session: Legal and user issues in the online environment

Presentation title: Legal aspects of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying occurs when the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person. This bullying occurs via email, text and multimedia messaging, posts to blogs, and Web sites.

Cyberbullying poses a serious threat to all young people and research shows that more than 50% of Polish children fell victim to it at one time or another.

Lawmakers are seeking to address online bullying with new legislation, especially in terms of children protection. In many cases of cyberbullying, such as identity theft or ridicule, existing legislation proves to be insufficient. Actions taken by the police and the prosecution in order to detect the crime and punish the offender are often too conventional for the nature and form of cybercrime. This hinders enforcement of legal responsibility for such offences. Moreover, legal regulations lag behind the lightning-speed change of cyber-reality and new forms of cyberbullying. It must be observed though, that legislators acknowledge the problem and make efforts to enact new laws in order to protect minors more efficiently.

In this presentation I will talk about legal aspects of cyberbullying and ways of taking legal action against cybercrime after it had been committed, as well as about civil law regulations on Internet safety. I will also discuss the amendment to the penal code passed on 5 November 2009, which took effect on 8 June 2010.