The forum, which was made up of industry stakeholders ranging from the judiciary, financial institutions, telecoms operators, Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), among others, faulted some key areas of the Cybercrime law and called for its immediate review.
A telecoms lawyer, Basil Udotai who spoke on ‘Challenges for Compliance and Enforcement’, commended Jonathan for signing the Cybercrime Bill into law shortly before leaving office on May 29, 2015, insisting that the law will boost foreign and local investors’ confidence in investing in Nigeria. Udotai however called for immediate review of the law because of the many identified loopholes in the document that is made up of eight parts.
Udotai who faulted the discentralised nature of the Cybercrime document, said implementation of the law ought to have been well spelt out and centralised on key agencies of government, instead of allowing it open to unlimited number of agencies that will carry out its implementation process.
He said the document was structured in an open ended form, which makes it extremely difficult to undergo proper implementation process. “Cybercrime Law is supposed to be a specialised law meant for specialised people to handle,” Udotai said.
For the law to be fully implemented, it needs some funding that could be generated from every online financial transaction, but all these are lacking in the law, Udotai said.
Other faults as identified by the forum, include the inability of the document to provide defensive windows for persons that may contravene the law. They also complained that the law was too concerned about punitive measures, rather than corrective and regulatory measures that should address best global practice.
Another stakeholder who presented a paper on “Institutional Framework for Implementation and Enforcement”, Ade Ipaye, said most lawyers have their reservations about the Cybercrime Law, based on the manner it was drafted, and the various sectors of the Nigerian economy, which the law did not adequately address.
He said the section of the law, which stipulates a maximum period of two years for telecommunications operators to retain subscribers information, should be looked into and reviewed, because according to him, the two years period was just too short.
Senior Management Staff at MTN, Mrs. Rume Rotomi, said telecoms operators should have been contacted to make their inputs on data information retention, since it cost operators additional money to keep data secured and to release them when the need arises
One other area, which the forum laid emphasis on, was on cybercafe operator, which the law stipulates that cybercafe operators should be held responsible for the actions of customers who use the commercial systems of the operators to defraud innocent citizens.
Ipaye rather suggested that CCTV be mounted in every cybercafe, such that when an online crime is committed, the perpetrators could easily be traced through the recordings of the CCTV and the culprits apprehended, rather than putting the blame of dubious customers on cybercafe operators.
The Lagos State Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zubairu Muazu who spoke on the criminal investigator’s perspective of the cybercrime law, listed various kinds of cybercrimes committed by people, through the internet.
He said the police would continue to use all available technology tools to monitor and arrest cybercrime offenders.
In 2004, the Cybercrime National Working Group, proposed a Cybercrime Bill for the country, but it was swept under the carpet and did not see the light of the day.
In 2006, the Computer Security Bill was introduced but also could not scale through the readings at the National Assembly for vested interests that worked against it.
Between 2007 and 2011, several Cybercrime Bills were presented, which went the way of others, until 2014, when another bill was sponsored and eventually signed into law by the former President Goodluck Jonathan on May 15, 2015, after it scaled through several readings at both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Tags
Society