WESTERN BUREAU:

In response to overwhelming concerns relating to Internet fraud, Parliament is to introduce, in the coming months, a law that will tackle electronic commerce scams.

The legislation would make it much easier to arrest, charge and convict perpetrators who are involved in the practice.

"That law will provide for the legal framework for doing business via the Internet," said Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Industry, Technology, Energy and Commerce.

The Technology Minister was the guest speaker at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Affiliated Computer Services' (ACS) new 65,000 square-foot facility in Montego Bay yesterday.

The multimillion-dollar expan-sion programme is sche-duled to commence later this year.

drafting instructions

According to Mr. Paulwell, Cabinet last Monday approved drafting instructions for the promulgation of a Cyber Crimes Bill for Jamaica.

He said this particular bill was more significant than the E-Commerce Transactions Act, having regard to some of the difficulties experienced within the industry globally.

"This Cyber Crimes Bill will deal with the unauthorised access to data; it will deal with and make criminal unauthorised interception, interference with programmes and data, computer related forgery and fraud and computer sabotage and will also make criminal those persons who incite, aid and abet those offences," he said.