Transcript
PNG's new Cyber-Crime Act is a piece of legislation that is long overdue according to Zinnia Dawidi an ICT lawyer who helped draft it.
"The importance of it is to curb I guess the occurrence of the negative effects of using mobile phones ICT's the internet and such."
The Act itself is not readily accessible online, it is not on the PNG parliament website and a request made by RNZ International for a copy of the legislation is awaiting "certification."
Zinnia Dawidi acknowledges that this is a problem.
"That has been our biggest challenge at the moment because we have had a lot of people, a lot of people have misconceptions that the law is introduced to suppress their freedom of speech but that is not the case."
Be that as it may the penalties that some offences under the new Cyber Crime Act draws are impressive. A particular offence highlighted by the Post Courier newspaper shortly after the act was passed in parliament is illegal interception. Again without access to the legislation it is not clear what this covers but the penalty quoted by the paper is 15 to 25 years imprisonment or fines not exceeding around $US300,000. This was enough to scare prominent blogger Martyn Namorong who in 2015 when asked about the then proposed law said he would never stop writing and criticising government. Today even with the legislation yet to come into effect Mr Namorong says he has closed his blog down just to be on the safe side.
"The penalties are much higher than for rape and drug dealing and all that. Basically I closed the blog down because there is so much stuff on there and even if I posted it back in 2012 or 2011. Am I still culpable under this new law because it is still accessible today."
But Zinnia Dawidi says the law will not be retrospective and the penalties are not fixed.
"Because of the wide-ranging effects of cybercrime we have placed the penalties the way they are. Penalties stated is the ceiling penalties so it ranges from zero or zero Kina or no imprisonment term to the penalties that are stated in the law."
Another other area which could be affected is public discussions on Facebook forums on twitter and other social media platforms. Already Facebook pages such as PNG Sharptalk, one of the first public social media spaces in PNG, feature a disclaimer warning users they have to have facts to back up their comments and also advising that administrators would be even more strict in vetting comments before posting as they could be liable for any defamatory or otherwise unlawful content posted on the page. Precautions aside however the founder of PNG Sharptalk, Douveri Henao, says he feels the Cyber Crime Act is a positive step for PNG.
"By putting in place provisions relating to cyberbullying, defamation it does assist in that regulatory space. What it does is it puts the onus back on the person that is actually posting. Are you absolutely sure that what you are putting there is factual or not."
However even he says he has seen a dampening effect in various online forums in PNG since the legislation passed last month.
"I have seen a bit of a scale down on that, there was also a page on that pre-facebook and they have had to remove significant amounts of their content probably triggered because of the legislation. So yes there is a much more conscious user of these social media pages that I have seen in the past three or four weeks."
The Pacific Freedom Forum's Jason Brown says social media networks have been instrumental in keeping the PNG public informed and any negative impact on that space would be detrimental.
"I would think in terms of many multi-million corruption scandals alone would out-weigh any concerns about abusive or defamatory content or comments. But I mean a million Kina that is, that would put anyone off making comment."
Blogger Martyn Namorong has an even bleaker view.
"The internet penetration of this country is just about two percent so it affects a very, very small demography. So it obviously highlights that it is not about you know justice for the majority of the population but justice for the elite of the country."
But ICT lawyer Zinnia Dawidi has brushed these concerns aside and says the new cyber crime laws actually strengthen individual's rights to free expression while at the same time offering them greater protection from defamation and cyber bullying.
"PNG is not alone in this we had other countries in the Pacific who also legislated and passed it in their countries easy peasy. Our parliament passed it unanimously and I don't see why PNG should be any different."
There are no disputes on the necessity of other aspects of the Cybercrime Act which regulate ecommerce, criminalise pornography and offer protection for children online. However one thing all parties agree on is the need if somewhat belatedly for transparency and awareness around the legislation which is due to come into effect as soon as it is gazetted.
