Thirty member states today signed the first ever international treaty on cybercrime.

The Council of Europe's (CoE) Convention on Cybercrime opened for signature today in Budapest and attracted 26 European members as well as Canada, Japan, the US and South Africa.

The CoE said that other non-member states may also be invited by the Committee of Ministers to sign this treaty at a later date. Seventeen European countries including Russia, Denmark and Ireland were among those who did not sign the convention.

The aim of the Convention is to "pursue, as a matter of priority, a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, inter alia by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation".

But Guy De Vel, director general of legal affairs at the Council of Europe, was quick to counter assumptions that the Convention would be used to enforce a Big Brother type system.

"The text covers only specific criminal investigations, and certainly does not lend itself to the setting up of an Orwellian-style general electronic surveillance system," he said.

The focus will be on copyright infringement, computer fraud, child pornography and network security offences. The convention will also look at procedural powers for the searching and interception of data.

It will have an Additional Protocol, making it a criminal offence to disseminate any kind of racist or xenophobic propaganda via computer networks. The drafting of this Additional Protocol will begin in December.

Hans Christian Krger, deputy secretary general of the CoE, said: "Cyber crime and cyber terrorism represent a serious challenge to society as a whole, and this Convention provides the first coordinated and international response to this challenge."

He said the Convention had been drawn up with care so as to strike "a precious balance between the requirements of criminal investigations and respect for individual rights."

The treaty will come into force as soon as five states, at least three of which must be Council of Europe members, have ratified it.