The government has presented the Cybercrime Bill 2023 to Parliament, aiming to provide a legitimate basis for law enforcement agencies, including the intelligence agency, to monitor and intercept specific communications in real-time. The bill, guided by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, underwent its first reading before lawmakers yesterday.

If approved, the bill will empower police officers below the rank of ASP, intelligence or cyber security agency officers below the rank of deputy director to apply to the high court for warrants to collect traffic data for specific criminal investigations or if they have reasonable grounds to believe that traffic data is associated with specific communications or connected with persons under investigation.

The application for such warrants shall be made ex-parte, and if approved by the court, the officers concerned may seize, secure specific computer systems, programs, or data, and further inspect and check the operation of any computer system.

Persons obstructing the exercise of powers under this section or abusing the powers granted under it are liable to a fine of not more than D1 million or imprisonment of not more than 2 years.

The bill also mandates service providers served with an order on the warrant to comply with it or risk committing an offense and facing a fine of not more than D1 million or imprisonment upon conviction.

Furthermore, authorized persons may apply to a judge of the high court to issue a warrant to allow them to collect or record through technical means or require service providers to intercept specific communications in real-time for the purposes of prosecuting a serious crime or giving effect to mutual legal assistance requests.

Additionally, the bill seeks to criminalize several offenses, including using a computer system with intent to harm by spreading false news or information against a person, production, possession, transmission, distribution, and downloading of child pornography through a computer system, sharing and distributing sexually explicit content of another person, and using a computer system to threaten, intimidate, coerce, harass, or harm a person using the sexually explicit content of that person.