PNG Information Minister Basil orders review over US Facebook saga
Personal data, chats, pictures, contact details of Papua New Guinea Facebook users are on the same FB database.
Port Moresby: Fake Facebook account users, trolls, cyber bullies and porn pushers – you are warned.
The Papua New Guinea minister responsible for ICT is coming after you.
Communications, Information Technology and Energy Minister Samuel Basil directed his ICT line agencies to research and advise him on appropriate course of action to “protect privacy of the many Facebook users” in Papua New Guinea.
“The brief I require will also include issue of unidentified Facebook users using false IDs to commit cybercrimes, including defamation, fake news, pornographic and other illicit materials which is behind the SIM card registration,” said Mr Basil.
Mr Basil issued the directives to the Department of Information and Communications and the National Information Communications Technology Authority on Monday in the wake of US Senate and class action court hearings to ascertain whether Facebook Inc failed to protect privacy of Facebook users in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Personal data, chats, pictures, contact details of Papua New Guinea Facebook users are on the same Facebook Inc database. Mr Basil has been monitoring the US Senate hearing on Facebook as well as the class action court case against Facebook
and Cambridge Analytica and two other organisations in the light of millions of PNG Facebook users.
“Facebook, as a social network, came into to PNG riding on infrastructure of telecommunications and IT service providers. The government, swept along by IT globalisation, never really had the chance to ascertain the advantages or disadvantages – and even educate and provide guidance on use of social networks like Facebook to PNG users,” he said.