THE Joint Select Committee of Parliament now reviewing the 2010 Cybercrimes Act will tomorrow examine a proposed list of revised fines and penalties for offences under the provisions.

Calls for an increase in the fines and penalties under the Act were one of several accepted by the Legal Reform Department of the Ministry of Justice following its review of the submissions and recommendations made to the Joint Select Committee so far.

In February this year, telecommunications giant Digicel, CEO of Proficiency Labs International Dr Tyrone Grandison, and the Jamaica Constabulary Force recommended that the fines and terms of imprisonment under the Act should be increased as they are not severe enough and do not act as deterrents.

“That is a recommendation that has been accepted; in fact, we are examining some of the penalties and terms which we think are low and which we believe we need to increase and in fact some recommendations will come to the committee on Wednesday,” said Minister of State in the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining Julian Robinson, who chairs the committee.

Robinson, who was speaking at the weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper’s head offices in Kingston, said the committee was at one in agreeing that the present fines and penalties “are not strong enough”.

“With the increase in technology what you find is that you have certain types of cybercrimes being committed. In some instances you have new ways of committing old crimes and in certain instances you have new offences being created and what you find is then that we as a country have to keep up,” said Tracey-Ann Johnson, acting head of the Cybercrimes Unit at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

“From a prosecutorial perspective we are hoping that the recommendations that would have been made as to amendments to the legislation will quickly come on stream so that we are able to target more effectively the particular crimes being committed in our society today,” said Johnson.

Noting that “success is measured by the rate of convictions”, Johnson said she was unable to say definitively whether prosecutors were having the upper hand in these cases.

“Generally, in terms of prosecuting some of the new crimes that are being committed, what we find is that police officers have tended to charge under old legislation or contrary to common law, so, for example, if some sort of fraud or dishonesty is found, a police officer will charge for conspiracy to commit fraud or obtaining money by false pretence, but nothing under the Cybercrimes Act,” she pointed out.

In the meantime, she said prosecutors were anxiously awaiting the proposed amendments to Section (4) of the Act which is posing a “difficulty” in its current form.

“That has been a significant challenge to prosecution of the offences because it says “a person who commits an offence, if that person accesses any programme or data held in a computer with the intent to commit any offence punishable by imprisonment for a term ‘not’ exceeding one year. Once the ‘not’ is removed what you find is we will be able to bring more serious offences under the Cybercrimes Act,” Johnson explained.

“In fact, if it is that that “not” is removed, what we will find is that many of our challenges will disappear,” she said.

Last week, the recommendation was also accepted by the Joint Select Committee.