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Cybercrime law in effect, but State Prosecutors still untrained
With the cybercrime legislation in effect, training for law enforcement personnel is integral to ensuring that there is capacity to prosecute perpetrators of online crimes.
A group of State Prosecutors during a training session held earlier this year.
The cybercrime legislation was crafted to make illegal, certain activities using a computer and over the internet, such as child pornography, cyber bullying, theft of data, and revenge porn among others.
The law sets out that a person commits an offence if he/she intentionally, without authorization or in excess of authorization, or by infringing any security measure, accesses a computer system or any part of a computer system of another person.
Cybercrime also deals with child pornography and child luring. It says that a person who produces child pornography for the purpose of distribution through a computer system, or offers or makes available, distributes or transmits child pornography through a computer system, commits an offence.
The law was made effective on August 13, last, after President David Granger assented to the provisions outlined in the cybercrime bill.
However, with the new law in effect, the State is duty-bound to expose law enforcement officials especially police officers, state prosecutors (lawyers) and members of the judiciary, to adequate training, which will build their capacity to prosecute in this area.
While the police have been exposed to training in this regard, legal professionals are yet to undergo any formal cybercrime training.
Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal, Affairs Basil Williams underscored this fact at a recent engagement with members of the judiciary. The AG admitted that training is necessary, particularly in relatively new areas of prosecution such as money laundering, financial crimes and cybercrime.
“In the direction which the world is going, the prosecution must possess the requisite skills to prosecute crimes such as fraud, corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing. In the age of technology, our prosecutions must be able to manage cybercrimes and electronic evidence. It is my hope that this training will break new ground for our State Prosecutors, especially as this government seeks to combat corruption,” the AG added.
Meanwhile, members of the Guyana Police Force have benefited from continuous training on cybercrime from a number of skilled agencies. In 2016, members of the GPF attended International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol)-sponsored training conducted in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Minister of State Joseph Harmon had noted that the cooperation with Interpol is important as Guyana builds the capacity of its public security sector.
“You may have good detectives and so on that look at these different types of offences (but there are) other types of offences that are being committed on the internet and in cyber space, so this is important training for our policemen.”
Harmon noted that the officers’ cybercrime training is part of the preparation in the public security sector for tackling cybercrime locally.
“It will enable Guyana to enhance cyber security preparedness and to respond to current emerging cyber threats.” Several technical subject areas, including cyber security, IT and the latest management mechanisms are crucial parts of the training.
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