Consolidated cybercrime bill to be filed this week

By Erwin Oliva - INQUIRER.net

A consolidated version of a cybercrime bill will be filed this week, a state prosecutor has told INQUIRER.net.

"We're drafting an omnibus or consolidated bill. We're filing it this week," said Department of Justice State Prosecutor Geronimo Sy, in a telephone interview.

"This is everyone's responsibility," Sy said, as he pointed out that the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) is taking the lead in working for the bill in Congress.

CICT officials were unavailable for comment.

Last year, the DoJ created a task force to deal with cybersecurity issues in legislation and investigation. The group was created to pursue the e-government agenda, institutionalize a cybersecurity regime and implement laws.

Last year, Sy had said that the task force would work closely with the Council of Europe, a private organization, and local experts composed of IT practitioners and other stakeholders.

Among the top priorities of the group was to work for the passage of the cybercrime prevention act, which failed to pass in the previous Congress.

The task force was expected to work with the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police.

Also last year, the CICT, DoJ and the Council of Europe agreed to work together on the cybercrime bill.

So far, the country has convicted two hackers under the exisiting Republic Act No. 8792 or the Electronic Commerce Law.

NBI exasperated over delay of cybercrime bill, hits CICT

Melvin G. Calimag - Manila Bulletin

An IT officer of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has lambasted the continued delay in the passage of the country’s cybercrime law, pointing out in particular the failure of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) to submit an industry-drafted amendment to strengthen a bill currently pending in Congress.


"We’re frustrated in our law-enforcement work because we cannot go after these cybercriminals. Every minute that passes without a law on cybercrime is always an opportunity for them to do what they want," said Palmer Mallari, executive officer of the NBI anti-fraud and computers crime division.

Mallari made the comment during the sidelines of a recent e-commerce forum sponsored by the Philippine Internet Commerce Society (PICS) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) at the Ateneo Professional School in Rockwell Center, Makati City.

The NBI official was specifically upset when CICT chair Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III delivered the event’s keynote and mentioned the agency’s current efforts to push for the ratification of a cybercrime bill.

"It seems all of these are for speech purposes and nothing concrete is being done," he said, adding that the NBI’s hands are tied in prosecuting IT-related offenses.

Mallari was indignant at what he said was the CICT’s inaction in submitting to lawmakers the amendments culled during a seminar on cybercrime held late last year.

The workshop he was referring to was the one sponsored by Microsoft Philippines that was attended by private and public sector representatives, including Catanduanes congressman Joseph Santiago, as well as foreign participants from the Council of Europe.

During the workshop’s conclusion, Santiago joined Roxas-Chua and Microsoft Philippines managing director Rafael "Pepeng" Rollan in signing a manifesto of support for a strong cybercrime bill.

Mallari said it has been almost six months since the amendments were turned over to the CICT, but the agency has yet to submit it to Congress through the sponsors of the proposed law. Before coming up with the recommendation, participants in the workshop met and discussed the needed amendments from July to November, he said.

But according to Roxas-Chua, the CICT has already formed a technical working group to firm up the amendments so it can be turned over to Congress. He, however, refused to indicate a definite date for its submission.

The technical working group is temporarily being headed by lawyer Teodoro Kalaw IV. He is standing in for fellow lawyer Claro Parlade, who is currently out of the country.

The Philippines desperately needs a law that will address emergence of new crimes such as cybersex and child trafficking. The country has an E-commerce Law, which was signed into law in June 2000 by former president Joseph Estrada, but this delves mostly on electronic evidence and penalties on common Internet offenses such as hacking and copyright violations.

Governments shouldn't cut Internet--UN telecoms chief

Agence France-Presse GENEVA--UN telecommunications agency chief Hamadoun Toure said Friday that no government had the right to cut their citizens off from the Internet, following recent incidents in Myanmar.

Toure, who heads the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), underlined that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had recently described safe access to the Internet as a basic human right.

"Yes, I believe no government has a right to cut off its citizens from cyberspace," Toure told journalists in response to a question about a temporary cut in Internet services in Myanmar during recent unrest there.

"The right to communication is a basic freedom and a basic human right that needs to be preserved, no matter what," the ITU Secretary General added.

An Internet blockage in Myanmar late last week severely reduced the flow of video, photos and first-hand reports of the violence there that had helped galvanise an outcry against the ruling generals.

The cut was widely blamed on security forces there. A telecom official in Myanmar confirmed that the nation's main link to the Internet was down, but blamed the problem on a damaged undersea cable.

Global approach needed on cybercrime, says experts

Agence France-Presse
Switzerland -- Telecoms and computer executives, legal officials, and United Nations agencies on Friday warned that the world needs to take a global approach to tackling cybercrime and security issues on the Internet.

International Telecommunications Union chief Hamadoun Toure said individual national or regional approaches to tackle spam, hackers, remote attacks on computer systems, and use of the Internet for crime would inevitably be flawed.

"Cyber security is a global problem and it needs a global solution," he told journalists after a meeting here.

The attempt to set up a global agenda to tackle cybersecurity has gained momentum following a concerted wave of cyber attacks on Estonia's websites and computer infrastructure in May, participants said.

"It can happen again, anywhere in the world," said Norwegian judge and computer crime specialist Stein Schjolberg.

"Whatever applies in the conventional world can apply in an amplified way in the cyberworld," he added.

The meeting decided to set up five working groups to examine possible legislative and technical measures, more international cooperation, and reinforcing finance and security infrastructure.

Toure said the experts were aiming to report on their findings next March, and he would introduce recommendations on concrete steps at an ITU council meeting in September 2008.