JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

TTPBA: Changes coming to Data Protection Act

by

20121207

The T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) is mak­ing strides to up­hold press free­dom in the coun­try. So said TTP­BA pres­i­dent Ki­ran Ma­haraj dur­ing her ad­dress on Thurs­day at the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ninth an­nu­al din­ner and awards for me­dia ex­cel­lence at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.

The awards were pre­sent­ed to long-serv­ing ac­tress and me­dia pre­sen­ter Bar­bara As­soon and vet­er­an Trinidad-born British-based broad­cast­er Sir Trevor Mc­Don­ald. She said: "I am hap­py to let you know that the TTP­BA has been mak­ing strides.

"Last year I spoke about the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act and the fact that we would lob­by and try to get it amend­ed.

"I am hap­py to re­port that ear­li­er this year I met with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (Anand Ram­lo­gan) and he has for­mal­ly writ­ten to the TTB­PA stat­ing: 'I am pleased to in­form you that Cab­i­net has al­ready agreed to an amend­ment of the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act to cre­ate an ex­emp­tion for in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism in Part Four of the act.'"

She al­so said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ram­lo­gan met with mem­bers of the In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute and had agreed to work to­wards the abo­li­tion of the Crim­i­nal Defama­tion Act. Ma­haraj said an­oth­er mat­ter of con­cern for the or­gan­i­sa­tion was the is­sue of one hour a day to be set aside for gov­ern­ment pro­gram­ming. She said there was a dif­fer­ence be­tween gov­ern­ment pro­gram­ming and pub­lic in­ter­est.

"It puz­zles me why there seems to be a brazen ap­proach to this air­time is­sue," Ma­haraj said. The as­so­ci­a­tion's trea­sur­er Daren Lee Sing said T&T was the cen­tre of in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia fo­cus when the IPI World Con­gress was host­ed last June by the TTP­BA and the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Me­dia Work­ers (ACM).

As­soon was un­able to at­tend the event to ac­cept her award as she was in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed by the flu virus. Mc­Don­ald sent a record­ed mes­sage and apol­o­gised for his un­avoid­able ab­sence. He said it was a "great ho­n­our" to be recog­nised by his peers and by his own peo­ple and he was proud to have met some of the finest peo­ple in the in­dus­try.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored