SEPARATE ITEMS of legislation to govern privacy in local internet transactions and to open up the market of internet service providers are to be enacted this year, as Government surfs ahead with plans to develop the local Information Technology sector.
Speaking during the launch of the Gleaner Company's go-kingston.com website on Tuesday, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Technology, Phillip Paulwell said government was committed to using Internet Technology to make its bureaucratic machinery more efficient, but recognises the need to make protect internet transactions by legislation.
He said plans were progressing for a major project in which post offices are to offer internet facilities to allow the members of the public to make income tax payments, process driver's licences and get copies of personal documents. This, the Minister said, would also eliminate the need for persons in rural Jamaica to travel to Kingston to transact certain types of business and spend hours standing in line to do so.
"We want a government that is paperless and without lines," he told his audience at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library.
Mr. Paulwell said that legislation would be forthcoming this year to protect privacy in Internet Transactions, as well as to safeguard intellectual property rights on the internet.
He noted that government was continuing its attempt to "bridge the digital divide" by opening up the market for internet service providers, with cable operators to be allowed by legislation to provide last-mile internet services from mid-year without going through Cable and Wireless.
"The more we open the market, the more we are driven by competition, is the more we are going to see the fall in price, and the more our people are going to have access to the internet," the Minister said. He said this policy would help increase the number of ordinary Jamaicans with direct internet access from the current figure of 100,000.
Government also plans to negotiate with internet service providers to ensure that schools will no longer have to pay for internet access, he said.
