Upcoming amendments to Cyber Crime Act in line with UN Convention; clear rules coming for serving court documents overseas

Last Updated on Thursday, 5 September 2024, 22:46 by Writer

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday ruled out that impending amendments to the Cyber Crime Act would seek to stifle freedom of expression and freedom of the media but would be in line with the United Nations (UN) Convention against Cybercrime.

“We are not for censorship on the internet.” he told his weekly press conference at Freedom House, the headquarters of the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP).

He urged Guyanese to dismiss claims that the government was preparing to target its critics on the internet because there was no plan to regulate people’s expressions on the internet. “Don’t buy into this hysteria that we’re coming after anyone – influencers, social media commentators or ordinary citizens,” he said.

The latest available draft of the International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes states that several human rights will be protected. “Nothing in this Convention shall be interpreted as permitting suppression of human rights or fundamental freedoms, including the rights related to the freedoms of expression, conscience, opinion, religion or belief, peaceful assembly and association, in accordance and in a manner consistent with applicable international human rights law.”

Deeming such claims “nonsense”, Mr Jagdeo sought to assure the public that his government believes in freedom of speech and freedom of expression even when government is targeted. A number of persons, including at least one government minister, had complained to the police about violation of the Cyber Crime Act which was inherited from A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration. In opposition, the PPP-Civic had joined in criticising the Cyber Crime Act.

The Vice President said the regulations that would accompany the Cyber Crime Act in keeping with the UN Convention on Cybercrime to tighten the screws on cyber offences such as extortion. “The United Nations, now, has come up with model legislation about crime, crime that is perpetrated in cyberspace so the regulations will fit into the United Nations framework of what they have defined would be crime in cyberspace,” he said. The proposed convention lists several offences including theft or fraud, child sexual abuse or child sexual exploitation, solicitation or grooming for the purpose of committing a sexual offence against a child, non-consensual dissemination of intimate images, laundering of proceeds of crime, illegal interception of non-public transmissions of electronic data, interference with electronic data and misuse of devices.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall on Thursday said that the days of using social media to destroy reputation, excite racial hostilities, engender strife, cause public mischief and extort monies for their livelihood are “quickly coming to an end”. “Users of social media and citizens generally, are hereby fully assured that they have nothing to fear once they do not use their platforms serially for illicit means. Yes, those who use their platforms for the nefarious purposes outlined above have reason to fear, hence the desperate reactions,” he said.

Mr Nandlall said the use of social media in such a manner amounts to an “abuse” of freedom of expression and so no government or country would stand idly by in the face of such onslaught on citizens’ social lives and the lives of their families, reputation and character. “A regulatory framework must be installed and installed very quickly to arrest this situation and the penalties for violation of this regulatory framew0rk must be condign,” he said.

He said amendments to the Cyber Crime Act would be tabled when the National Assembly resumes from its two-month recess in October, even as work on the UN Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes continues.

Guyana’s Law Reform Commission, Mr Nandlall said, was also tasked with reviewing and amending the Criminal Procedure statutory provisions to allow for documents to be served “smoothly” on overseas-based persons who use cyberspace to commit offences in Guyana. In apparent reference to the controversial service of a Guyana magistrate’s court summons to New York-based opposition activist, Rickford Burke, in December 2023, the Attorney General said the law would settle technical arguments about the court’s jurisdiction, service of documents and who can serve them. “We are going to settle all those matters because cyberspace has become as equally as dangerous place as physical space that we currently occupy,” he said.