The founder of cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ad­vo­ca­cy group Cy­ber­SafeTT has sup­port­ed Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s call for ur­gent AI leg­is­la­tion.

Daren Dho­ray de­scribed the Pres­i­dent’s speech dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment on Fri­day as a “for­ward-look­ing aware­ness of both the promise and per­il AI pos­es to our so­ci­ety.”

Kan­ga­loo had wel­comed the new gov­ern­ment’s cre­ation of a Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence but said this must be fol­lowed by laws to pre­vent fu­ture harm. She warned that AI could deep­en in­equal­i­ty, dis­place work­ers, and con­cen­trate eco­nom­ic pow­er with­out ear­ly leg­isla­tive safe­guards.

Dho­ray drew at­ten­tion to the Pres­i­dent’s com­par­i­son be­tween AI and the de­layed reg­u­la­tion of so­cial me­dia. He cit­ed the fail­ure to pass a com­pre­hen­sive Cy­ber Crime Bill, warn­ing that this con­tin­ued to af­fect all cit­i­zens, not just women, and demon­strat­ed the need for an­tic­i­pa­to­ry gov­er­nance.

He said that if prop­er­ly re­sourced, the new min­istry could help Trinidad and To­ba­go be­come a re­gion­al leader in eth­i­cal tech gov­er­nance. But he stressed that suc­cess would de­pend on in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al co­op­er­a­tion and leg­isla­tive re­form, not just bu­reau­crat­ic box-check­ing.

Cy­ber­SafeTT high­light­ed gaps in the Com­put­er Mis­use Act, last up­dat­ed in 2011, say­ing it was no longer fit for pur­pose. Dho­ray said the law re­mained use­ful for pros­e­cut­ing ba­sic cy­ber of­fences but was silent on ran­somware, phish­ing, dig­i­tal pri­va­cy, and AI mis­use.

Dho­ray urged Par­lia­ment to:

Mod­ernise the Com­put­er Mis­use Act to ad­dress emerg­ing threats

En­force da­ta pro­tec­tion and pri­va­cy rights in line with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards

In­tro­duce laws en­sur­ing AI trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and fair­ness

In­vest in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty en­force­ment, reg­u­la­tion, and ed­u­ca­tion

“We echo the Pres­i­dent’s re­minder: Trinidad and To­ba­go can­not af­ford to wait un­til dig­i­tal harm be­comes head­lines,” the group said.

Cy­ber­SafeTT warned the risks were “re­al and ris­ing,” from the spread of in­ti­mate im­ages with­out con­sent to al­go­rith­mic dis­crim­i­na­tion and job dis­place­ment.

As the coun­try en­ters a new leg­isla­tive ses­sion, Dho­ray called on pol­i­cy­mak­ers to seize the mo­ment and shape a fu­ture where dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies serve the pub­lic good.

“Let us lead, not just in re­act­ing to harm, but in build­ing a dig­i­tal so­ci­ety that is eth­i­cal, in­clu­sive, and se­cure by de­sign.”