The University of Technology, Jamaica (Utech) tabled a position paper to the joint select committee of Parliament requesting the protection of a legislative sandbox as a regulatory amendment to the Cybercrimes Act, 2015. The aim would be to broaden the safety net of security for all levels of the educational systems. A regulatory sandbox is a framework that allows FinTech start-ups and other innovators to conduct live experiments in a controlled environment under a regulator’s supervision.

The Utech team, led by Dr Sean Thorpe, professor of cybersecurity, head of school of computing and information technology, argued that a legislative, regulatory sandbox would serve as a policy instrument to facilitate small-scale, live testing of digital educational innovations in a controlled market-like safe space within physical and virtual environments. “If approved it allows the university to research with the unaltered academic freedom to develop intellectual property, patents, and licensed products without the worry of trespass under the Cybercrimes Act,” Dr Thorpe explained.

University students learn the principles of protecting computer systems within cyberspace by showing the flaws within these digital systems and then learning how to build suitable critical infrastructure protection. Such research could be misconstrued as ethical hacking under the Cyber Crime Act, an actual criminal offence. To avert this, Dr Thorpe insists that there must be an urgency to support the legislative, educational regulatory sandbox to protect teaching and learning processes and research innovation.