It is also intended to improve delivery of government services.
The need to have common cyber laws among the five partner states of East African Community (EAC) Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, comes at a time when the countries have started exploiting benefits of being connected to high speed Internet following linking of the region to three undersea fibre cables.
However, the link has also opened up a floodgate of cyber crimes.
The partners see adoption of harmonised cyber laws as critical to implementing e-government services effectively and facilitating faster regional trade and investment.
Acting ICT secretary at the Directorate of e-government John Sergon said a common cyber law is important for the integration of the EAC since it will address subjects like e-taxation, competition and monopolies, and enforcement of law.
“The framework has been approved by the council of ministers for EAC and the task force will meet in September in Nairobi to finalise the document,” said Mr Sergon.
Locally, the drive is spear headed by the Directorate of e-government, the EAC ministry, Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) and Central Bank.
But players will be expanded to cater for all interested parties in e-commerce.
The harmonisation of cyber laws is to be done in two phases, with the first entailing focusing on electronic transactions, electronic signatures and authentication, data protection and privacy, consumer protection, and computer crimes.
Apart from Burundi, the other four countries have embarked on the first phase of the project.
Even while Kenya adopted, last year, a law addressing e-transactions, e-signatures, consumer protection, and computer crime, legal expert Nzioka Waita said the move still falls short of the globally recommended model UNCITRAL law on electronic transactions.
The Kenya Information Communication Amendment Act 2009, he said, does not address issues such as data protection or information security.
Other areas that the law falls short of meeting in regard to global standards is that it passes the liability for carriage of illegal content to the carrier of illegal information as opposed to the person creating and utilising the data, such as adult content.
This means that Internet Service Providers (ISP) are liable for the sites visited by customers, which is out of keeping with the international norm which favours a “take down” approach where ISPs’ are notified of the illegal content and given some time to block the offending information from being accessed through its systems.
“East African countries would be better off adopting the UNCITRAL model law on e-transactions as it is a much more focused and better drafted basis upon which to legislate,” said Mr Waita.
“A key challenge to note when discussing cyber crime law is that the question of legal jurisdiction is a key consideration. The internet is a global portal and therefore it is not always easy to ascertain exactly where a crime has been committed and what national law has jurisdiction over the offence.”
Cyber offenders
Mr Sergon concurred that the Kenya Information Communication Amendment Act 2009 is a good piece of legislation because the country is now able to anticipate, project, and prosecute cyber crime offenders.
However, he said, it is not comprehensive since it does not, for example, address cross-border crime while in the cyber world jurisdiction is a key issue.
In Rwanda, a draft information and communication technology (ICT) bill was prepared last year covering the issues of e-signatures, consumer protection, privacy, and content regulation.
Last February, the country prepared a draft criminal law on cyber crime.
Rwandan laws on digital copyright and e-contracting were passed earlier this year.
In Tanzania, the Central Bank, the Tanzanian Revenue Authority, and the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority are setting up an e-procurement system for the Tanzanian Public Service.
Last year, the Uganda Government passed bills on electronic transactions, electronic signatures, and computer misuse.
The East Africa Community Task Force on Cyberlaws was recently set up in Kigali, Rwanda, with community members focusing on putting into effect a framework for cyber laws adopted by the EAC Sectoral Council of Ministers on Transport, Communications, and Meteorology.
The EAC framework recommends the creation of regional oversight bodies; one such body being the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), an electronic authentication body, among others.
The framework was prepared with the assistance of UNCTAD.
Partner states have been briefed on resources at the international and regional levels that can be of use when designing domestic legislation on cyber laws.
The Kigali meeting also reviewed progress by EAC partner states in preparing and adopting cyber laws.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Mark Okuttah
Quelle/Source: Business Daily Africa, 24.06.2010
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