BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

(bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt)

As the world ob­served World Press Free­dom Day yes­ter­day with the theme: "In­for­ma­tion as a Pub­lic Good,”, the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) was hop­ing Gov­ern­ment would heed UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res' call, urg­ing all gov­ern­ments to do every­thing in their pow­er to sup­port a free, in­de­pen­dent and di­verse me­dia.

In the mean­time, how­ev­er, it is still wait­ing on a re­sponse from the Gov­ern­ment on its pro­pos­al to rem­e­dy the con­tentious T&T Cy­ber Crime Bill, in which MATT and oth­er me­dia as­so­ci­a­tions felt clause eight was a di­rect hit on me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers, giv­en its con­tent.

First tabled in 2014, the bill was up­dat­ed in 2017 in which clause eight seeks to cre­ate the of­fence of “il­le­gal­ly ac­quir­ing com­put­er da­ta. This of­fence would car­ry a fine of one hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars and two years’ im­pris­on­ment on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion or a fine of five hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars and three years im­pris­on­ment on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment. This clause al­so seeks to cre­ate the of­fence of re­ceiv­ing or gain­ing ac­cess to com­put­er da­ta know­ing that it is ob­tained il­le­gal­ly, and would car­ry the same penal­ty as that of the of­fence of il­le­gal­ly ac­quir­ing com­put­er da­ta.”

The bill cov­ers var­i­ous cy­ber of­fences, in­clud­ing re­venge porn, child pornog­ra­phy, black­mail­ing, hate speech, and pro­tec­tion of na­tion­al se­crets.

Giv­ing an up­date, MATT Pres­i­dent Dr Sheila Ram­per­sad told Guardian Me­dia the as­so­ci­a­tion made rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the Gov­ern­ment via a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) that was specif­i­cal­ly held to fo­cus on the Cy­ber Crime Bill.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, MATT would have al­so made two ap­pear­ances, Ram­per­sad said, as­sist­ed on its sec­ond ap­pear­ance in 2018 by at­tor­ney-at-law Dr Emir Crowne.

At that JSC, a pro­pos­al by MATT was made to rem­e­dy the prob­lems in the bill and the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of jour­nal­ists and oth­er pub­lic in­ter­est ac­tors in so­ci­ety.

She dis­closed, “Ba­si­cal­ly what we pro­posed was a pub­lic in­ter­est ex­emp­tion that would rem­e­dy I would say about 80 per cent of the prob­lems that we have with the bill and the con­cerns we have with the bill. The rest of it could be reme­died with the in­ser­tion of a word or two in a cou­ple of claus­es."

How­ev­er, since the pro­pos­al was made, Ram­per­sad said, MATT was still wait­ing for a re­sponse from the Gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing on Gov­ern­ment’s da­ta pro­tec­tion leg­is­la­tion, Ram­per­sad said MATT was in­vit­ed ear­li­er this year along with oth­er par­ties to a con­sul­ta­tion at the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al re­gard­ing a Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act.

She ex­plained cur­rent­ly there was a Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act that was passed through means un­pro­claimed and that was pos­si­ble large­ly due to it be­ing a “prob­lem­at­ic piece of leg­is­la­tion.”

Ram­per­sad dis­closed, “It seems the Gov­ern­ment is try­ing to ap­proach da­ta pro­tec­tion leg­is­la­tion again, and dif­fer­ent­ly this time and MATT has been en­gaged. It is our hope and ex­pec­ta­tion some of the many prob­lems in the cur­rent un­pro­claimed Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act would be reme­died in what­ev­er ver­sion of leg­is­la­tion might be com­ing to re­peal and re­place, the cur­rent Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act.”