The government has come up with draft regulations on Computer misuse and Cybercrimes, Interior PS Raymond Omollo has said.
Omollo said the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee, a task force established six months ago to work on the regulations was almost through with the assignment.
He said the task force was left with a few weeks to one month to conclude the drafting process before they take it to Kenyans for public participation and eventually parliament for it to be passed into law.
“We are here today as part of an assignment that we began six months ago. We did set up a task force to look at the regulations out of the 2018 Computer Cybercrimes Act,” Omollo said.
Omollo addressed the press in Machakos County on Wednesday.
He said the regulations were supposed to go through a series of processes.
“Now, we have the two co-chairs and taskforce team members who are drawn from all government agencies that deal with issues to do with cyberspace issues on ICT and digitalization,” Omollo said.
Omollo said the government was key on digital transformation stating that there had been a lot of activities within the digital space recently.
“This task force has finally come up with draft regulations. This draft regulations need to be taken through public participation and subsequently to parliament for their passage and then we are able to start implementing the regulations,” he said.
He said Key aspects which the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Regulations will address include;
Protection measures for critical information and infrastructure that includes telecoms, banking, transport and energy.
The regulations will also address cybercrime management to deal with issues of scams, identity theft, hacking and internet fraud.
Finally, they will also address cybercrime capacity and capability building for public, businesses, government institutions, and private entities to enhance their cybersecurity preparedness and prioritize cybersecurity.
“Cyber security is a collective responsibility and the government is up to the task of ensuring a safe cyber environment in the country,” Omollo said.
Omollo said the government will be making a communication to the public so that they are able to have personalized interaction with these draft regulations.
“We want to hear what they think is okay with the regulations that have been proposed, what they would want us to adjust or change. It’s a Constitutional requirement that when you develop regulations as such, the public must participate,” Omollo said.
He said the Act they were developing regulations for was passed in 2018.
“That’s over five years ago and with those years, there have been a lot of changes in terms of technology and there may be a need for us to have amendments to the Act. We will be able to deal with that based on the proposals that we will get from the public and those which shall come from the task force,” Omollo said.
Omollo said among the proposals which had come from the task force was the need to have a much more coordinated approach in terms of dealing with threats that come with the usage of cyberspace and digitalization.
He said that might necessitate the government to re-look at various agencies and have them better coordinated.
“In terms of public participation, we have to do two weeks of notification and another two weeks of actual discussion. Public participation is expected to take one month,” Omollo said.
