REVIEW OF CYBER CRIMES ACTS - TANZANIA
The central theme of the bill is
to regulate how online content is produced and disseminated (Article 7). It
provides unchecked powers to both the minister responsible (Art. 39) as well as
the police force to unlawfully search a suspect’s data and/or source of
information. Not only does it pose a serious risk to citizen journalism, but
threatens to punish very strongly whistle blowers (Article 15) who are
important actors in building government transparency.
Some of the offences punishable
under the proposed law include pornography, provision of false information
(inaccurate data), cyber bullying, racism and xenophobia.
The provision of inaccurate
information is made unlawful under this proposed law (Art. 16) punishable by up
to Tshs. 3, 000,000. Despite the serious flaw in that precedence itself, the
bill does not concisely provide the authority responsible for the verification
of such data.
According to Article 20, both the
sources as well as the recipients are liable in the transmission of “unlawful”
online data. The proposed law requires that service providers (Art 32) are
liable to provide information on their clients upon demand let alone the
unlimited powers provided to the police force (Art. 31) to search users of
online data in the absence of a court order (more like in the sense of an
unlawful stop and search).
The provision on cyber bulling is
left blurred which opens up room for the prosecution of immaterial suspicion of
cyber bullying as the proposed law itself does not clearly define cyber
bullying (Art 23).
All in all the proposed law
definitely provides for potential state brutality against online users and
providers of internet services not to mention serious violation of Freedom of
information. Unchecked powers of both the police force and the responsible
minister make it highly unlawful and incompatible any regional or international
standards on right to information and cyber security.
Some articles interpret the
burden of responsibility for transmitted data in a rather controversial way
Article 7
(2)b: A person who receives unauthorised computer data commits
an offence…
Without any recognition of the fact that receiving
data. E.g. in the form of emails, viruses, etc is often beyond your
control.
Article 20
(1): a person shall not (a)
initiate the transmission of unsolicited messages; (b) relay or retransmit
unsolicited messages... where ‘unsolicited messages’ means any electronic message
which is not solicited by the recipient.
- Parts of the Act are
(purposefully?) vague and open to very broad and possibly problematic
interpretations
Article 18
(1): a person shall not insult another person through a computer
system on the basis of race, colour descent, nationality, ethnic origin or
religion.
Article 23
(1): a person shall not
initiate or send any electronic communication using a computer system to
another person with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass or cause emotional distress
No parameters set out as to what insult or
emotional distress, etc, means and no reference to another set of laws or
mother law that would set such parameters.
- Disclosure of data, article 32- potentially negative
consequences for whistleblowers, journalist sources, etc.
Articles 32-35
These
articles force service provider to give out data of their clients to the police
without any court order (subpoena), The police with such unbridled authority
are defined as police officer in-charge of a police station or a law
enforcement officer of a similar rank. It gives this authority even on terms of
suspicion.
Articles 39-45
Service providers are said to be protected but under certain
conditions. In article 39 the minister is given too much power to decide,
regulate and to remove information about given issue.
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