GOVERNMENT will be moving early next year to address the issue of cyber-crimes among other pressing matters currently engaging the attention of the Ministry of Legal Affairs.“I’ve proposed, in our 2016 Budget, to have funding to host certain consultations from time to time as matters arise; these are the things we have to look at… We have inherited things from the previous government that we don’t necessarily have to keep,” said Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams early last week.
What the government would ideally like to have he said, is a national consultation on cyber-crime legislation so that persons could have a better understanding of what constitutes a cyber-crime offence .
“We have to train investigators, so that they could investigate them and prefer charges; prosecutors have to know how to prosecute for such offences, and magistrates have to understand them,” Minister Williams said.
Meanwhile, Guyana is moving to tighten a number of loopholes, so as to drastically reduce the temptation and opportunity to commit a cyber-crime, which can range from website hacking to out-and-out fraud.
Experts are already being trained in cyber-crime legislation and enforcement, while plans are in train to enact several laws related to cyber-security.
Cyber-security attacks on websites, such as defacement, can be reported to the Guyana National Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) at http://www.cirt.gy/
According to a report on Latin American and Caribbean Cyber-security Trends published in June, 2014, Guyana has made several noteworthy advances on the cyber-security front, the main one being the establishment of CIRT in August 2013 as the “designated authority responsible for managing cyber incidents at the national level.”
The report notes that Guyana is expected to formulate a policy framework for addressing cyber-security in a more strategic, comprehensive, and proactive manner, and engage in an aggressive public awareness campaign.
CIRT, according to the report, was also expected to make mandatory reporting by government agencies to promote more effective cyber-security administration and the gathering of accurate and detailed statistics on cyber incidents.
Back in August, Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan had addressed the opening of the National Cyber Security Sensitisation Workshop.
He told the opening session of the workshop that in addition to public awareness and training, cyber-security should be taught in primary and secondary schools.