|
Continent Joins Fight Against Internet Crime
Kampala, Aug 27, 2010 (New Vision/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
The African Centre for Cyber Law and Cyber Crime Prevention has been launched in Naguru, a Kampala suburb.
The centre, set up by the United Nations African Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders (UNAFRI), in conjunction with the International Association of Cyber Crime Prevention (AILCC), is based in France.
It is aimed at monitoring cyberspace and fighting cyber crime in Africa. Cyber crime refers to any vice committed by means of a computer system, in a computer system, or against a computer system. The centre is to deal with organised crime, child pornography on the Internet, cyber terrorism, information security and online tax fraud among others.
The director and head of mission for UNAFRI, Sita Masamba, said over $1trillion is lost annually worldwide to cyber crime. He noted that Africa has 85 million Internet users. "This shows that Africa is a subject like the rest of the world. Cyber crime is borderless since it does not heed to where the perpetrators, victims or authorities are located." Masamba said with the increasing access to Internet globally, there is need to unite with international organisations to fight the vice.
"All nations need to improve their laws and enforcement in order to make sure that no state is a haven for computerised criminal activity," he said. The information communication technology minister, Aggrey Awori, said Parliament was discussing cyber laws which would be passed soon.
"It (cyber crime) is a gross violation of personal rights to ownership and privacy. It has led to diverse consequences to the economy as well as security and property," Awori said in a speech read by the ministry's Permanent Secretary, Dr. Jimmy Samanya.
In his supplement, Samanya noted that in a research conducted by Makerere University faculty of ICT, 25% of the respondents planned and successfully implemented a cyber crime, while 90% of Internet users were defrauded. He said global statistics reveal that about $200b is lost to identity thieves annually.
"Identity thieves hack into and use relevant valuable documents like land titles, car documents, bank accounts."
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
|
TMCnet LOGIN
Webinars
