With this law, the Colombian government transposes into its domestic body of regulation the treaty on cybercrime, adopted on November 23rd, 2001 in Budapest, and in force since July 2004.

The Treaty is fruit of the need for cooperation between nation states and the private sector in the fight against cybercrime, and of the necessity to curtail actions that infringe on the confidentiality, integrity and availability of IT systems. The law seeks to put sufficient measures in place to fight such crimes as are on the statute books and that infringe these interests.

The purpose of the Treaty is to provide guidelines for the "Member States" for the adoption and implementation of legislative measures that specify as crimes actions involving illicit access to an IT system, illicit interception of data, interference (damage, erasure, alteration or suppression) of data, falsification and IT fraud, child pornography, infringements of intellectual property and similar rights, among others.

The Act also stipulates the commitment of these states to adopt such measures as may be necessary to enforce the criminal liability of legal persons for the crimes listed above, whether these have been committed by natural persons, by individuals or by a member of a body pertaining to these legal persons. It also provides for criminal liability on the part of a legal person when lack of supervision or monitoring enables these crimes to be committed.

When implementing their internal measures, Treaty States must adopt the principles of international cooperation, extradition, mutual assistance and information-sharing, and the commitment to appoint a contact point available 24/7, in order to ensure that immediate help is provided in investigations and procedures relating to crimes involving IT systems and data.