Capacity biggest challenge for cybercrime law

Ian Mileng, NICTA Manager for Legal Services.

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, January 1, 2017 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)



SINCE its passage through parliament last year, the Cybercrime Act 2016 still is a challenge to implement.

That was the assessment given by Ian Mileng, Manager for Legal Services at the National Information, and Communication Technology Authority (NICTA).

Mr Mileng said that capacity in both the judiciary and the police especially are lacking as the field in which the Cybercrime Act governs is very technical .

“One of the biggest challenges in implementing this legislation is the capacity because cybercrime is a very technical area that requires expertise,” Mileng said.

“Right now the police do not have the capacity and effective implementation will depend very much on up-skilling and building capacity to deal with these kinds of offenses.”

“Probably we will have a dedicated cybercrime unit within the police force then it will assist in the long run.”

Efforts by the ICT (information communication technology) regulator will take place in this year awaiting certification of the passed legislation for training programs that have been developed for the police and judicial services.

“Where experts will come in using ICT devices are able to detect where the user IP addresses are to detect the source,” NICTA CEO Charles Punaha said.

“As part of the process obviously they will have to go to court, get a court order and go to the service provider, through the administrator and go through the information of how this particular account has been created.”

“With that they will be able to identify that IP address and they can even trace it back to the device that it is registered from.”

Punaha explained that it is not NICTA did not have the jurisdiction to actually investigate.

“That is a matter for police and we would expect the victims or persons to lay complaints with the police to undertake investigations and NICTA will assist with the technical aspects of the investigation.”

“Police will then prosecute and the courts will look at the penalties under the Cyber Crime law including any specific orders that the courts may impose.”

“We are still waiting for the Cyber Crime bill to be certified so we are just undertaking this as part of the process to inform the public on what is in the law,” he said.