By Howard Walker, Staff Reporter 
PERSONS WHO commit criminal offences over the Internet will soon face prosecution as a committee has been set up to draft a Cyber Crimes Bill which should be in effect by June.
The Cyber Crimes Bill will also allow much more use of e-commerce and will enhance the security for people to use the Internet, says Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology.
"Protection against cyber crimes is becoming very important because a lot of businesses are transacted over the Internet," he said. "It's an issue stemming from e-commerce and we want people to feel confident to engage in such transactions and deter hackers and other persons who violate the rights of others," the Minister told The Sunday Gleaner.
The large committee comprises representatives from the ministries of National Security, Commerce, Science and Technology, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Justice, and Finance and Planning. It includes other agencies such as the Bank of Jamaica, Tax Assessment and Audit Department, Jamaica Customs and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel.
The group which met for the first time on March 3, was formed to present a united front in dealing with the whole matter of cyber crime and to ensure consensus on the various provisions of the legislation, misuse of data and spamming.
Cyber crime offences include hacking, pornography, breach of intellectual property rights, the illegal access to persons' records and the transmission of viruses.
MISUSING DATA
The legislation would seek to prevent criminals from misusing data from invading the privacy of persons who supplied information such as credit card number electronically.
It would address the issue of pornography, so that persons would not have this material forced on them and children can be protected from such exposure.
The Bill will seek to prevent the practice of sending unsolicited pop-up information or spamming and address the protection of intellectual property on the world-wide web, as well as hacking or illegal entry into persons' or organisations computer files.
"Can you imagine someone sending thousands of messages to a Web site?" asked Michael Duquesnay, executive director of Central Information and Technology Office (CITO), an agency under the Ministry of Commerce. "It's like closing down a Web site."
According Mr. Duquesnay, in order to be effective, a twin set of laws will have to be implemented simultaneously. He was referring to the Electronic Transaction Bill and the Cyber Crimes Bill. The cyber crime legislation will be crucial to the proper functioning of the Electronic Transaction Bill, currently being considered for passage in Parliament.
ACTS
Duquesnay said the Electronic Transaction Bill falls under the Ministry of Commerce while the Cyber Crimes Bill falls under the Ministry of Security. "Both could be passed as a companion Act to complement each other," he pointed out.
Last year, after RBTT (Jamaica) lost millions of dollars through its automated teller system, Dr. Peter Phillips, Minister of National Security, pointed to the need to pay more attention to cyber crimes.
"The increased incidents of cyber crime and the increasing use of e-commerce locally should impress on more Jamaicans the need to beef up the security of enterprise data on the Internet," he said.
