PREAMBLE

As part of the full package e of e-government laws, the Data Protection Bill is provided as a complement to the Electronic Transactions Bill. The Data Protection Bill aims to ensure that personal information in the custody or control of an organization, whether public or private, shall not be disclosed, processed or used other than the purpose for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual and where exemptions are clearly defined.

The Data Protection Bill thus creates binding obligations with respect to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information as well as setting access rights.

Just as electronic transactions has been taking place for several years in [Member State] and, without the legal frameworks setting out default provisions and protections, so too large amounts of personal data is being collected, by the private sector and Government.

The practice of holding or using personal data is certainly not new, but when this is combined with current technology, including electronic and online transactions, it has become very easy to collect and store vast amounts of personal information.  Government is undoubtedly the largest custodian of personal information. The private sector, including financial and medical institutions, is also custodian of a large amount of personal information. 

The Data Protection Bill seeks to protect individuals by requiring organizations to notify persons as to the purpose for collecting their personal information and to follow certain policies and practices for sharing such information.

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

Electronic Crimes Bill 20 [ ] 

This Bill contains 4 Parts and seeks to provide for the prevention and punishment of electronic crimes.

PART I of the Bill, Clauses 1-4,deals with matters of a preliminary nature. Clause 1 is the standard citation and commencement provision.

Clause 2 sets out the interpretation of terms used in the Bill like “access”, “contaminant”, “data”, “damage”, “function”, “traffic data which have been carefully defined in order to ensure that the intended purpose of the legislation is achieved.  

Clause 3 sets out the application of the Bill.

PART II of the Bill, Clauses 4 -19,creates 16 offences: access and interference, sending offensive messages through communication service, etc, identity theft, electronic defamation, electronic forgery, electronic fraud, malicious code, violation of privacy, misuse of encryption, child pornography, sensitive electronic system, electronic terrorism, crank calls to law enforcement, electronic stalking,spoofing and unauthorized access to code.

PART III of the Bill, Clauses 20 – 29provides for investigations and procedures of electronic crimes.  

PREAMBLE

This is a revised version of the document which has been prepared within the framework of the ITU-EU HIPCAR project implemented by the International Telecommunication Union in collaboration with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU). That document is based on the policy guidelines discussed and endorsed by the HIPCAR’s Working Group on Information Society Issues – which includes as members key national and regional stakeholder organizations from throughout the region.

The draft Electronic Transactions Act (ETA) prepared under EGRIP gives legal recognition to electronic records and electronic signatures by way of evidentiary presumptions to ensure these have the same legal effect, validity or enforceability as paper records. These presumptions are:

(a)                There is no legal difference between electronic records and paper records.

(b)               There is no legal difference between electronic records and paper documents when satisfying the legal requirements of being in writing.

(c)                There is no legal difference between an electronic signature and a hand-written signature when satisfying the legal requirement of a signature.

(d)               There is no legal difference between electronic records and paper records when admitting these as evidence in legal proceedings.

(e)                There is no legal difference between a contract entered into electronically and a paper contract.

EXPLANATORY NOTES 

Clause 1 of the Bill provides the short title and commencement of the proposed legislation.

Clause 2 of the Bill defines certain words and expressions used in the Bill.

Clause 3 of the Bill states that the Act binds the Crown/State.

Clause 4 of the Bill clearly states that during transactions with public authorities, information can be submitted using electronic forms in the manner specified by the authorities, even if these forms do not resemble the physical prescribed forms required for the transactions.  The provisions are proposed to provide flexibility for public authorities to design electronic forms suited for online transactions, and hence improve the customer’s overall e-Government experience.

For example, public authorities can create integrated electronic forms to facilitate a user’s performance of multiple e-Government transactions from a single point of access. Using the integrated electronic form, the user would need to input his relevant information just once, instead of having to fill in the same information repeatedly in the multiple forms for different e-Government transactions.

THE ELECTRONIC FILING [REGULATIONS/ RULES]

STATUTORY RULES AND ORDERS NO. [ ]   OF [    ]

In exercise conferred by section [    ] of the E-filing Act No [ ] of [  ] the Minister makes the following [Regulations/Rules]:

Citation

1.      These [Regulations/Rules] may be cited as the Electronic Filing [Regulations/Rules], 2011.

Interpretation

2.      (1)      In these [Regulations/Rules]:

“electronic” has the same meaning as within the Electronic Transactions Act No. [ ] of [      ]; 

“electronic filing provider” means the vendor providing electronic filing and electronic-service of documents via the Internet. [1]

 “electronic filing” means the electronic transmission of documents to the Government, and from the Government, for the purposes of filing. 

 “transaction receipt” means a confirmation that is electronically transmitted to a registered user after an authorised user has submitted a transaction through the electronic filing provider to a designated [Public Body/Public Authority] and/or parties. 

"transaction" means the record that is created by the electronic filing provider with respect to a filed document including the document, name of Public Body/Public Authority], name of case matter, and name of filing party and other associated information.

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM 

 The main purpose of this Bill is to regulate the transfer of money through electronic means, by use of a card or number or data associated with a card for the purpose of instructing or authorising a financial institution to debit or credit a cardholder’s account when anything of value is purchased.

The Bill creates a number of offences related to the theft, forgery and other dishonest use of a credit card, debit card, bank card, smart card, or the number and data associated with such card or a bank account, and is intended to build user confidence in electronic commerce and electronic transfers. It should be noted that the Bill was drafted to be technology neutral, so that the same offences, whether committed in a shop in the OECS Member States, at an electronic terminal, or used to purchase good or services online, apply in a similar manner.

This Bill thus closes a big gap which exists in the law with respect to the use of credit cards, debit cards and online banking transfers, including online transactions.

The application of this Bill is largely limited to the transfer of funds via electronic means such as using bank cards, credit card, smart cards, online banking transfers and mobile commerce. The provisions of the Bill are important for E-Government as it creates a number of offences which do not currently exist relating to electronic funds transfer. With discrete offences now being created law enforcement will be much more efficient as various criminal activities in electronic funds transfers will have their own particular offences and ways of being dealt with.

ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS BILL, 2011

EXPLANATORY NOTES

(These notes form no part of the bill but are intended only to indicate its general purport)

The Bill seeks to provide for the transfer of information and records by electronic means.

The Bill contains eleven Parts and forty-four sections.

The business community, including banks and commercial organisations, and consumers and public authorities are increasingly using computer and other related technologies to create, transmit and store information in electronic form instead of in traditional paper documents. Information stored in electronic form has many advantages as it is cheaper and easier to store and retrieve and speedier to communicate. Even though the general public is aware of all these advantages, many individuals are reluctant to conduct business or conclude any transaction electronically due to the lack of an appropriate legal framework.

1       Introduction

1.1           Context

This report is a continuation of the series of deliverables to the OECS EGRIP project. Earlier reports of this series of deliverables focused on the assessment of the ICT management and investment practices within the Governments of the participating countries and the Definition of harmonized ICT management and investment practices.

1.2         Purpose

The purpose of this report is to provide a framework for total cost of ownership analysis and optimization including related documentation, and strategy for pooled procurement of software licenses.

1.3         Overview

This report has been developed with a view to identify best possible strategies, customized to address the OECS specific solutions. The solutions are designed to assist the OECS governments to improve their:

·          ICT Procurement Planning 

·          Supplier Management and Relationship Building

·          ICT Service Delivery

·          ICT Cost Optimization

In addition, several  tools and templates are embedded in this report in the form of Microsoft Office Objects (i.e., Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.). These generic tools and templates can be used as a guide, however, customization by the subject matter experts may be required based on the particular requirements of the project.

1.         Introduction

1.1.       Context

This report contains definitions of the Total Cost of Ownerships dimensions, which were used in the Assessment of the ICT management & investment practices report. This report also focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of various investment practices available to Governments today.

1.2.     Methodology

In response to the Request for Proposal, PwC employed an Issue Based Problem Solving (IBPS) approach for the assessment and recommendations for OECS countries. There was a need to gain a comprehensive understanding of the status quo in order to determine the scope for, and identify the areas of, improvement of efficiency and effectiveness for Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

There have been two main phases of the assessment, namely:

·         Information Collection

·         TCO Assessment

Each of these phases is described below in brief.

1.           Introduction

This report provides the recommended best practices and guidelines to be adopted by the OECS participating countries for the development of the Government Enterprise Architecture (GEA).

The best practices and guidelines has been presented across the following architectural segments:

1.       Enterprise Architecture Framework and Standards

2.       Application Architecture

3.       Information Architecture

4.       Integration Architecture

5.       Security Architecture

6.       Infrastructure Architecture

1.           Introduction

Presently the eGovernment development trend across the globe focuses primarily on interoperable connected government to enhance government efficiency and transparency with increased citizen participation through the online service delivery of basic citizen services.

In line with this global trend, the OECS governments have started working towards creating an open, transparent, interoperable environment to help government information systems work successfully together and in an integrated and seamless manner regardless of the underlying technology or application.

Towards this objective, the first version of the OECS eGovernment Interoperability Framework (eGIF) has been drafted in this report. A Government Interoperability Framework (GIF) is a set of standards and guidelines that a government uses to specify the preferred way that its agencies, citizens and partners interact with each other.

This proposed eGIF is expected to deliver the following benefits:

• Enable proprietary and open source systems in different Government information systems, both within Government and external to Government, to communicate and inter-operate efficiently and effectively through seamless information flow across government / public service organisations;
• Promote and foster the adoption of open source solutions within the Government, by emphasizing the need for openness, transparency and competitiveness for all implementations of information systems;
• Promote and foster the adoption of open standards that enables the exchange of data between applications;
• Promote vendor-neutral and technology-neutral implementations, with the adoption of open standards, for all Government information systems; and
• Reduce the total cost of ownership of Government information systems, with the adoption of open standards.

Stakeholders Interviewed

Saint Lucia

1.           Executive Summary

Background and Purpose

The eGovernment development trend across the world today continues to focus on online service delivery with an emphasis on cohesive, coordinated and integrated processes for institutional linkages across government departments. The key drivers to achieving efficiency and transparency in government services and promoting economic growth include the need to:

·         widen the scope of eGovernment services with greater online presence,

·         focus on citizen oriented public services,

·       strengthen institutional integration by leveraging the advances in technology which allow seamless data sharing and streamlining of cross sectoral government systems, and

·         focus on integrated service delivery gateways that will facilitate delivery of government services online through one-stop single window citizen portals.

In line with global trends to enhance regional integration the World Bank provided soft loans to six (6) member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), namely Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua & Barbuda and Saint Kitts and Nevis for implementation of the Electronic Government for Regional Integration Project (EGRIP).