IN a move to fight cyber crime and protect citizens from falling prey to cyber criminals, the government will next year table in Parliament three bills whose aim is to ensure protect electronic transactions and personal data information as well as ensure security.
The Deputy Minister for Communication, Science and Technology, Mr January Makamba named the bills as Cyber Security Laws, Personal Data Protection and Computer and Cyber Crime, which have already been presented to the Cabinet Secretariat.
Mr Makamba was responding to a question from Nkenge Member of Parliament, Ms Assumpter Mshama who wanted to know when the government will curb cyber crimes and how many suspects have been arrested in connection with cyber crimes and government steps against them.
The deputy minister said statistics show that from January 2012 to September 2014 a total of 999 cyber crimes were reported to the police around the country.
He said in 2012 alone there were 414 cyber crime cases, in 2013 there were 333 cyber crime cases while in 2014 there were 252 cases.
“A total of 212 cyber crime cases where a total of 132 suspects were involved, have been taken to court and 787 cyber crime cases are in different levels of investigations”, he explained.
Mr Makamba said theft through use of mobile phones is no different from any other offence, only that the criminals take advantage of mobile money transactions to commit the crimes.
“The ministry has been receiving a lot of complaints on money theft; either money is taken directly from their customers’ mobile phone accounts or from their bank accounts through use of SIM Banking,” he explained.
He said most of the times the offenders get the account holder’s details from the account holder or through other means, enabling the criminals to conduct transactions including stealing or transferring money from the account holder.
Mr Makamba used the opportunity to warn the public to refrain from revealing their bank or mobile money account detail to strangers, through responding to questions or agreeing to conditions sent from people they do not know.
“This is very dangerous and a lot of times, without their knowing, account holders release their details to criminals, you must be careful before releasing your details to people you do not know,” he explained.
He said the government has purchased a Central Equipment Identification Registrar which will make it easier to identify criminals and security organs have been trained on ways to investigate such cases.
Originally published on DailyNews Tanzania
