East African governments urged to pay more attention to cybercrime

At a time when cyber-crime is on the rise as almost every service goes online, governments in East Africa have been blamed for not paying enough attention to these crimes.

The remarks were made on day three of the Kampala Geopolitics Conference that was relayed live on NBS television on Friday.

Alice Namuli, a lawyer, said the most important question in relation to "Geopolitics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution" is to ensure safety of people in an era where it's the order of the day to use these new technologies.

She said when faced with cybercrime, and you report to the police, most of the security operatives have no idea what that is all about while some judges also have limited information on cyber-related crimes.

Robert Kirunda, a Makerere University law don, said many discussions on cybercrime focus on those who have access to smartphones and computers excluding many who don't.

"I am one of those who believe that rather than talking about these challenges, we should be looking at how to address them. The nature of the challenges the world has been facing has changed and Covid-19 has clearly shown this,"he said.

Kirunda said countries like Uganda have to look at how to reap from emerging technologies.

"Many people have a misconception that the technologies will be here in the future but they are already here. What government should think about is 'who is going to invest in the infrastructural element of this industrial revolution',"he noted.