In a landmark bipartisan move to modernize the nation’s legal framework against digital-era crime, Antigua and Barbuda’s Parliament has approved landmark amendments to the country’s Electronic Crimes Act, introducing new mandatory compliance obligations for telecommunications and digital service providers alongside harsher penalties for non-cooperation with criminal investigations.
Approved on Tuesday, the 2026 Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Bill significantly expands the legal authority of domestic law enforcement bodies to compel service providers to turn over critical electronic data and digital records during active investigations. Attorney General Sir Steadroy Benjamin told the legislative chamber that the updates were not arbitrary—they were born from repeated roadblocks that investigators have faced for years when attempting to access digital records held by private providers, records that can make or break criminal cases.
Under the terms of the new law, any service provider operating in Antigua and Barbuda can be legally ordered to produce electronic data, computer-generated records and other digital information when requested by police or other authorized law enforcement entities, as long as the request is backed by a formal court order. A key update to the original legislation addresses the rapid shift toward cloud storage: the bill explicitly expands the scope of accessible information to include data held on cloud-based platforms, a change legislators say is critical to keeping the country’s investigative powers aligned with the evolution of digital technology.
During the committee review stage, parliamentarians added an adjustment to the bill to explicitly include the Office of National Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy (ONDCP) in the definition of authorized law enforcement agencies, codifying the body’s right to seek digital evidence under the new law. The most impactful change for telecom providers, however, comes in the form of drastically increased penalties for firms or individuals that refuse to comply with court-ordered data production requests. The new legislation allows for fines of up to $100,000 for non-compliance, alongside possible imprisonment for responsible parties. It also introduces a progressive daily penalty of up to $5,000 for ongoing non-compliance, which kicks in after a 21-day grace period for providers to gather and produce the requested information.
Government lawmakers defended the strict new measures, noting that a small number of service providers have a documented history of delaying or outright resisting requests for information from investigators. St. Peter Member of Parliament Rawdon Turner emphasized that the bill gives law enforcement a much-needed new tool to tackle increasingly sophisticated criminal activity, including a wide range of digital scams that have defrauded both local businesses and individual residents.
Multiple legislators shared anecdotal and official examples of fraudsters exploiting modern telecommunications networks and digital platforms to run scams, noting that timely access to user and transaction records is often the only way to quickly identify suspects and stop them from committing additional offenses. The bill also includes safeguards to protect privacy and confidentiality: it requires service providers to uphold strict secrecy around any court-ordered data production requests when directed to do so by the courts, balancing law enforcement needs with the protection of user privacy.
In a rare show of cross-party unity on regulatory reform, the bill passed with full bipartisan support. Both government and opposition legislators agreed that stronger mandatory cooperation between digital service providers and law enforcement is an urgent necessity to combat the growing threat of modern, technology-enabled crime.