THE interception clause inserted in the Communications Bill, which was tabled in the National Assembly on Wednesday, holds far-reaching implications for every single Namibian.
All your • telephonic• e-mail and • cellphone text messages can be intercepted• It may also have implications for electronic banking and online credit card transactions.- The bill stipulates that providers of telecommunications services must ensure that they have information on all their customers.- All information so gathered must be forwarded to the requesting party.-Such information ‘must be sufficient to determine which telephone number or other identification has been issued to a specific customer to make it possible to intercept the telecommunications of that customer’.- The duty placed on telecommunications providers will be ‘enforced as if such duty were a licence condition’.- The bill says the interception centres ‘are necessary for the combating of crime and national security’.- The centres will be staffed by members of the Namibia Central Intelligence Service.- Any person or institution authorised by law to intercept or monitor electronic communication can request the head of the interception centre to tap phone calls (mobile and fixed).- Such a request must be accompanied with ‘any warrant that may be required under the law in question’; however, what kind of warrant and who should issue it is not clear.* ‘It’s a violation of the right to privacy,’ see page 2
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