ICTA hosts workshop on cyber crime

Justice Ministry Secretary Suhada Gamlath said that his Ministry has received much strength from the ICTA. Gamlath was making the keynote address at the inauguration of the two-day international workshop on Cooperation Against Cyber Crime in South Asia, jointly hosted by the Council of Europe and the ICTA.

Gamlath commended the contribution made by the staff of ICTA towards the formulation of the Computer Crime Acts No. 24 of 2007. Pointing out the need for further endeavours he said ,"Since the Act was certified by the Speaker in July, 2007, there are 194 investigations ongoing under this Act. However, no indictments have been filed to date. But this is not unusual.

This is the experience in many countries. Hence the need of further collective effort at domestic, regional and international level to give teeth to this piece of legislation especially through further work on electronic evidence as well as training of judges and prosecutors."

ICTA Chairman, Professor P. W. Epasinghe said, "For countries of South Asia - as for societies in other regions of the world - information and communication technologies provide unprecedented opportunities for social and economic development. As societies rely on ICT, they become vulnerable to risks such as cyber crime. Cooperation at all levels - interagency, public-private, international, are crucial elements of the response.

"In Asia a number of countries, such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have taken or are in the process of taking steps, including the strengthening of their cyber crime legislation in line with the Budapest Convention on cyber crime and of relevant instructions such as units responsible for high-tech investigations or incident response to face the challenge.

In Sri Lanka, ICTA not only helped in the formulation of legislation but also established expert units, such as Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team (SLCERT).

The aim of the workshop is to enhance the capacity of the countries of South Asia to cooperate internationally against cyber crime." Participants at the workshop included representatives from Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka who came together to enhance their capacity for cooperating against cyber crime.

The workshop provided an opportunity for assessing the cyber crime legislation of countries concerned. Compatibility of cyber crime legislation with international standards is a pre-requisite for international cooperation. Assessment of this compatibility of participating countries was an objective of the workshop.

Another was to promote interagency and public cooperation at domestic level.

Cyber crime legislation, high-tech crime investigations, international police/judicial cooperation and incident response (Computer Emergency Response Team [CERT] or similar) were subjects discussed.