– spark widespread concerns in public, private sectors

IT has been exactly one month since the Guyana Chronicle made public the concerns of Government and Opposition Members of Parliament, as well as public servants and stakeholders in the private sector, over the privacy of confidential personal communications.

And presently that worry is even more widespread, across different spheres of society.
At least five officials from Government ministries who spoke to a staff reporter from the Guyana Chronicle, yesterday, questioned whether they were being recorded over the phone. Another two senior ranking officials in the private sector questioned the reporter on what is the process before a recording can be made. “It has to be two-way consent, right?” one of the officials asked.
These concerns follow the disclosure of an alleged private conversation between a senior reporter at the Kaieteur News and the Attorney-General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall.
The 19-minute recording was made public by the publisher of Kaieteur News, Glenn Lall, who also used it to substantiate his claim that there is a ploy to close down his newspaper’s operations by the State – a claim that has repeatedly been vehemently denied.
Lall, on Monday afternoon, handed over the recording along with a statement to the Deputy Police Commissioner, Mr. Balram Persaud, when he made a complaint against the AG, alleging that his life and the lives of his staff were under threat.

IN HOT WATER
Lall has mounted a campaign against certain Government Officials and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), since he found himself in ‘hot water’ over tax evasion charges.
In early September, Lall was alleged to have evaded taxes for over a decade now. Reports are that Mr. Lall, the owner of the Guyana National Media Publishing Company (printers and publisher of the Kaieteur News), is being investigated by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for the importation of printing ink packaged as a CARICOM (Caribbean Community) product, which enjoys duty free concessions under the Revised Treaty of Chaguramas. Upon closer inspection, however, it was allegedly found that the origin of the inks was from overseas, and therefore in breach of the Treaty.

As it relates to progress of the investigation of the alleged tax evasion, the Guyana Chronicle was made to understand that the necessary verification requests are still with the relevant authorities in Trinidad and Tobago.

Prior to the tax evasion allegation, Mr. Lall was fingered in an alleged remigrant duty-free concession scam.
Since then, six criminal charges have altogether been filed against Lall; his wife, Bhena; and Narootandeo and Gharbassi Brijnanan, who have all been implicated in the scam. Lall and his wife have since been arraigned on four of these charges. The charges follow the seizure of two vehicles allegedly at the centre of a duty-free scam. The two vehicles in question, PRR 8398 and PRR 8399, were handed over to GRA and impounded at the Authority’s warehouse at the end of August, after an hours-long standoff between GRA officials and the Brijnanans’ son, Navin Sankar, a high-ranking GRA employee.
An investigation was then launched to ensure that procedures and policy, as well as the provisions of the law were adhered to. The criminal charges, this newspaper understands, stem from that investigation.
Also, in mid-September, both Lall and his wife were sued by Acting Town Clerk of the Mayor and City Council, Ms Carol Sooba, for the sum of $5,660,142 and $60,142 as unpaid rates and taxes for the years 2004 to 2013 in relation to their property at 24 Saffon Street. The case is currently being heard at the Georgetown Magistrates Court.

SERIOUS CONCERNS
General-Secretary of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Mr. Joseph Harmon, had told the Chronicle that there have always been “serious concerns” about the security of communication between people.
“We have even had cases where communication between our party members are hacked, and the question is how are they accessed…whether we had the capacity here to do so or not is something I am not sure of,” Harmon said.
The APNU General-Secretary stressed that the privacy of information and communication exchanges ought to be treated as private.
“Every email you send passes through a network and if this is information that comes into the hand of someone, you have to know how to treat with it. The privacy of your communications must be protected,” Mr. Harmon said.
According to him, this problem is something that can be looked at in the Parliamentary Committee, reviewing the moves to address reforms in the telecoms sector.
“Since the committee’s work is not complete, we can look into this and see if and how we can provide protection to the Guyanese people,” Mr. Harmon assured.

MUST BE ENFORCED
Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC) Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, in a prior interview, also expressed strong sentiments on the matter.
He was firm in his contention that laws related to privacy, confidentiality and security of online communications must be enforced.
“All the laws related to privacy must be enforced …we are filled with laws, we have no deficiency of laws, but they are not adhered to,” Ramjattan said.
Ramjattan is also Lall’s lawyer in the matter regarding the complaint against the AG.

MORE LAWS NEEDED
Also, President of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC), Mr. Ramesh Dookhoo, commenting on the issue, has called for the political parties represented in the National Assembly, to look at the legislation that deals with information sharing, the E-Commerce legislation, which has not been tabled in the National Assembly or passed.
The draft bill was intended to provide for the legal recognition of electronic writing, electronic contracts, electronic signatures and original information in electronic form in relation to commercial and other transactions and to provide for the facilitation of electronic transactions and related matters.
“We had a big seminar at Liliendaal and all of civil society and Information Technology specialists were there to discuss the legislation and a lot of work was put into it. This piece of law makes it criminal to hack emails, but it was never addressed. Now there is no law in Guyana to protect you if your emails are hacked,” he said.
Dookhoo added that this is something that must be revisited.
“We need to get this legislation on the ground,” he stressed, “It is something that must be looked at. I don’t know if sending an e-bill is legal, but we are doing it.”
The CAIC Head bemoaned the political gimmickry surrounding the issue and called for concrete action in addressing this.
“The private sector is quite clearly fed up and what we and the Guyanese people want is for real civil issues to be in place. If we look at the emails that were published in the Kaieteur News they are the emails of two prominent people in our society, but there is no law in place. We need to act,” he said.
Additionally, according to the ‘Reporter’s Handbook: Invasion of Privacy and the Media: The Right To Be Let Alone’, invasion of privacy by intrusion is defined as: “One who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability to the other for invasion of privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.”