Govt tough on cyber crime
Plans talks with Facebook to identify objectionable pages
Staff Reporter
The state minister for posts and telecommunications, Tarana Halim, said yesterday that the government is planning to hold talks with the authorities of Facebook this month to identify pages that contain militancy-related and other objectionable posts.
Tarana said this at the inauguration of the two-day international workshop on cyber crimes, titled Digital Bangladesh: Focusing on Cyber Crime, Safe Internet and Broadband, organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organization (CTO), with the cooperation of the Posts and Telecommunications Division and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) at a hotel in the capital.
Parliament Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Choudhury inaugurated the event as chief guest.
The state minister said they would take measures to stop Facebook pages that have been spreading militancy and objectionable contents from abroad.
In her speech, Tarana Halim said each social networking site is being operated under its own terms and policy. So, they have to keep in mind that the policy does not go against the law of the country. There should be coordination among the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Posts and Communications to implement and formulate cyber security strategies and policies, she added.
Shirin Sharmin Choudhury said the government is determined to secure personal information and strengthen security. This is why cyber security has become an important issue, she noted.
Mentioning that the government has put emphasis on strengthening telecommunication and cyber security, Shirin Sharmin Choudhury said the Prime Ministers ICT adviser, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, is working relentlessly to make the Digital Bangladesh campaign successful within the stipulated time. She urged the authorities concerned to ensure cyber security, as more and more people of the country are getting into digitisation.
Speaking at a separate event, titled Safety on the Internet, an associate professor of the University of Maryland, Em Pannah, suggested three things to minimise the vulnerability to cyber crimes, such as building awareness among people, providing adequate training to cyber security experts and forming a cyber security force.
He also suggested that one should not click any unknown links and unsolicited emails without reading the entire information to abstain from cyber attack.
Brig. Gen. Emdad Ul Bari of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission also spoke at the event. He said three fundamental strategies are required to build effective cyber security, such as legal instruments, technical measurements and organisational structure.
He also pointed out that there is lack of coordination between the ICT Division and the telecommunication ministry regarding sharing of cyber security information and implementation of cyber strategies.
The secretary of the Posts and Communications Division, Shyam Sunder Sikder, explained that the government has established Digital Security Act-2015 to prevent cyber crimes. The government has built two security cells, the Cyber Operation Centrer (COC) and the Network Operation Centre (NOC), to protect information from any kind of cyber crime.
