Japan signed a treaty Friday aimed at eradicating Internet-related crimes at an international conference on cybercrime in Budapest, government officials said.
Having signed the Convention on Cybercrime, Japan will begin taking steps to revise laws to allow Tokyo to work with other countries in dealing with cross-border crimes involving the Internet, the officials said.
The treaty deals in particular with copyright infringement, computer fraud, child pornography and violations of network security.
Signatory countries can launch joint investigations into cross-border Internet crimes.
The convention specifically requests that member countries make it a crime to manufacture or possess computer viruses and to manufacture or distribute child pornography on the Web.
It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making publication of racist propaganda via computer networks a criminal offense.