WINDHOEK – The much-anticipated Electronic Transaction and Cyber Crimes Bill which will provide legal recourse to punish those posting insensitive content such as graphic images of gender-based violence victims and those of a sexually explicit nature is in its final stages of review before Cabinet’s endorsement.
The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) has finalised the draft bill for the governance of social media and it is currently with legal drafters of the Ministry of Justice for certification.
The bill seeks to allow the victims of such postings recourse against those suspected of posting insensitive visuals or audios.
Speaking exclusively to New Era on Friday, the Director of Information and Communication Technology, Henri Kassen, confirmed the ministry was near finalizing the bill.
It is anticipated the bill will be tabled in parliament for consideration and approval before the end of the year.
“The bill was reviewed last year to focus only on electronic transactions and cyber crime as it originally also included data protection. It is in its final stages of review. Once Cabinet has approved the bill, it will be submitted to the National Assembly for debate ad adoption,” Kassen noted.
There has been continuous posting of gruesome crime scene pictures on social networks that had the nation reeling in shock, especially last year’s horrific pictures of the late Mirjam Tuyakula Nandjato, which ushered to the fore the question of control measures for discourse on social networks.
Equally, residents of the Zambezi Region were shocked at the sexually explicit nature of an audio recording of a councillor making advances to a woman.
Of late, there was also a case of what is now popularly known as “revenge porn” in which a University of Namibia (Unam) student was videotaped engaging in an explicit sexual act with her former boyfriend.
Last year, there was also a video clip in circulation that showed a promiscuous married woman having intercourse with her lover on a patch of grass reportedly in Zambezi Region.
The Swapo councillor in Katima Mulilo was caught unawares when his sexual advances to a local young woman was recorded and the audio file posted on social networks. He could be heard on Facebook pouring out his lust for the young woman to the extent of promising her he would take her to a lodge in Zambia where the two could have uninterrupted pleasure.
These are some of the many cyber violations for which the culprits have gone unpunished.
At the time of Nandjato’s death, the police, the Legal Assistance Centre, the ombudsman, as well as the information ministry all reacted strongly to the manner in which the public handled the matter, with the police actually going as far as monitoring social network sites in an effort to catch those responsible for uploading the pictures.
Adding insult to injury was the viral speed at which the news spread, ending up on the NBC language services even before the family was formally notified by the police about Nandjato’s death.
The bill once enacted into law would allow parties to apply for defamatory content to be removed from internet sites to prevent further publication.
Currently there is very little that law enforcement agencies can do to police social networks.