-Jagdeo says

THE Government of Guyana is developing a cybersecurity master plan to cater to and push the country into a modern era, says Vice-President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo.

The Vice President made this disclosure on Thursday during a press conference where he noted that laws, among other things, are being put in place to facilitate the push for a safer modern country.

He noted that there is a master plan that the government is looking at which contains several components that are being developed for specific sectors.

“We’re trying to automate them to bring them into a really modern era but we’re ensuring that they’re compatible with other systems that we are putting in place and the master plan,” Dr Jagdeo said.

Noting that they have already started addressing various things, he informed that only recently, there was an assessment conducted and completed for all organisations that fall under the Ministry of Home Affairs to be able to simplify and automate processes.

Additionally, he said there was the signing of a contract to have identification cards with full biometrics, which would allow the government to better develop a whole range of functions from deepening financial reforms to improving the government’s E-governance services.

With these advances, the Vice President indicated that the biometrics from the ID programme will feed into the security cameras that are being installed across the country even as he stated that the government is working on a safe country programme.

Jagdeo said: “…we have to do a number of things. We have to go to parliament with laws on privacy; they’re being drafted now. That will be given effect so that the data will be protected and any disclosure of private data, there will be serious penalties.”

This, he iterated is being worked on now to be implemented before the issuing of the cards.
However, the Vice President went on to clarify that these new electronic ID cards will be separate from the ID cards that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) uses.

“We didn’t want to collapse this into one ID card, next thing you hear oh PPP wanna take over GECOM functions,” he said.

Against this backdrop, Dr Jagdeo stated that these ID cards will need a separate piece of legislation which is also being worked on currently.

The Vice President said: “We’re mapping all of the processes across government where the public interfaces with government to automate them so a lot of work is being done on the cyber master plan to take our country into a new era.”

Jagdeo added that a lot of work is being done at the policy level in government to make way for this modernisation.