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Digicel (Guyana) unable to do wiretaps-CEO
The wiretapping laws came into effect at the end of August 2009 but Digicel Guyana is still not 100 per cent compliant.
This was revealed by Chief Executive Officer of the Company, Gregory Dean, who at a press briefing earlier this week, said that in terms of wiretapping, “we are not providing the service currently.”
He did stress that investments have been made and that the company is working assiduously to finalize the requirement.
Dean said that to date there has been no requests for the service. “To the best of my knowledge no service has been requested as yet.”
The CEO did stress that Digicel is working with the government to be fully compliant.
The expenditure has always been a bugbear and to date despite lengthy negotiations with Office of the President as it relates to assistance, this has not been forthcoming.
The cost of the equipment is reportedly in the vicinity of US$1M. It will enable the interception and storage of communication from mobile phones.
The fact that the companies (GT&T and Digicel) have to foot the bill to ensure compliance with the Interception of Communication Bill, commonly called the ‘’Wiretapping Bill’, had prompted Opposition Leader Robert Corbin to urge the companies to take legal action against the government.
According to the legislation, “If a judge issuing a warrant under this Act is satisfied that the operation of a public or private telecommunications system has failed to comply with the warrant for want of any support services for the transmission, switching equipment or any other technical facility or requirement, he may direct that the owner, operator or licensee of the telecommunications system shall, at his own cost, forthwith provide the required support service, install necessary switching equipment or provide the technical facility or requirement, as the case may be, for complying with the warrant to the satisfaction of the Court and the compliance with this subsection shall be deemed to be a condition in the licence granted for the operation of the telecommunication system.”
The piece of legislation stipulates that interception is defined as the monitoring of transmissions made by fibre optic cable or any other form of wire line by wireless telegraphy, voice over internet protocol, internet and all other forms of electromagnetic communications.
The controversial Interception of Communication Act legalized what is commonly referred to as wiretapping and was passed in the National Assembly despite staunch opposition.
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