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Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Cyber Crime, Security and Data Protection Bill.  The proposed law will cover a whole range of issues in relation to the utilisation of cyberspace.  

Expected to be gazetted soon, the Bill seeks, among other provisions, to provide for the drafting of a code of conduct and ethics, creation of a data protection authority and prescribe penalties for abuse of the internet.  Also, it will offer protection to citizens from cyber bullying and harassment while allowing the admissibility of electronic evidence for cyber offences and penalties on all offences committed under the Act.  

Anyone who generates and transmits subversive material meant to incite violence and damage to property as well as harm the economy will be punished under the law.  

 Briefing journalists on the 35th Cabinet decision matrix in Harare on Tuesday, Industry and Commerce Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu said:

“The Bill seeks to combat cyber-crime and increase cyber security in order to build confidence and trust in the secure use of information communication technologies.

“There will be penalties for the transmission of data messages inciting violence and damage to property and protection of citizens against cyber bullying and harassment.  There will be penalties for persons who generate, distribute or broadcast data concerning an identifiable person knowing it to be false and intending to cause psychological or economic harm; and transmission of pornographic material.”

He added:

“More specifically, the Bill provides for the following: provision and approval of codes of conduct and ethics to be observed by all categories of data controllers, data protection with due regard to constitutional rights and public interest under (the) Postal, Telecommunication and Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe.”

We are happy that at long last, the Government is coming up with the Cyber Crime, Security and Data Protection Act as many people, even organisations are abusing the internet to the detriment of others and, most regrettably, are not being punished for that.  

For this instalment today, we are most interested in how the proposed law will penalise persons “who generate, distribute or broadcast data concerning an identifiable person knowing it to be false and intending to cause psychological or economic harm . . .” 

In this age of social media and the fake news it encourages and spreads laws to instill greater responsibility among the people are critical.   

The term “fake news” can be defined as “the intentional distribution of incorrect information as well as to efforts to discredit accurate reporting.”  Researchers say that while the concept has been used at several points in history, its use has increased rapidly over the last five years which, in our view, has coincided with the growth of social media. 

Fake news is dominating social media in many jurisdictions and our country ranks quite high in that respect. The production of the false news is evidently systematic and appears to be associated with anti-Government citizens, political parties and so-called civil society groups.  The idea is to provoke alarm and despondency with a view to destabilising the Government and country. Examples of these are many.    

On Tuesday, a hoax circulated on social media stating that the Registrar General’s Office was issuing emergency passports.  It had hundreds of people queueing up at the Registrar General’s Office in Harare. The police reaction group had to be called in to control the situation, which was getting out of hand.

A day earlier, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) had to issue a statement rejecting social media reports that it will soon raid depositors’ foreign currency accounts. The posts that started circulating over the weekend urged Zimbabweans to clear their nostro accounts “as soon as possible” so that they do not lose their monies.

“Those that have crafted these fake media reports are making use of and quoting an old exchange control order from June 2019, and doing so out of context,” RBZ Deputy Governor Dr Kupukile Mlambo told Chronicle.

Indeed a whole industry appears to have emerged in our country, one that purposefully uses social media and other online platforms to generate and spread false, misleading and subversive information mostly against the Government and the economy. Doing this is dangerous as it has potential to trigger political and economic chaos. 

Elsewhere, governments have relevant technologies and laws to not only fish out the mischief-makers creating and broadcasting false news, but to also severely punish them.  

In China, a law that was passed in August 2015 spells out jail terms for as long as seven years for those convicted of fabricating false information related to “hazards, epidemics, disasters, and situations involving police” or intentionally disseminating such false information that causes “serious social disorder.”

We wait to see the punishments that the Cyber Crime, Security and Data Protection Act will prescribe but even at this early stage, we want the law to be tough not only against those convicted of generating and propagating false news, but other cyber crimes as well.