Myanmar commits to combat cyber crime

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YANGON, Sept 3 (Xinhua): Myanmar Police Force has formed an information technology (IT) unit to combat probable cyber crime in the future along with the development of IT in the country and increased use of internet, the local Flower News quoted an anti- transnational crime official as reporting Monday.
Despite not much major cyber crime occurring in the country, the police force formed the IT unit in preparation for fight against such probability, the official said, calling on people, especially commercially-operating cyber cafes, to cooperate with the police to expose such crime by systematically registering internet users' contents without simple ignorance.
In late 2004, the e(electronic)-National Task Force of Myanmar also formed a special cyber security team separately to crack down on cyber crime and launched a website to cooperate with foreign counterparts, according to the task force.
The move of the team, known as the Myanmar Computer Emergency Response Team (mm CERT), constitutes part of the efforts in securing the global internet network.
Myanmar's then launching of the website represented the first step under an agreement reached at a meeting of telecommunications ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore in 2003.
That meeting called for establishing in each member country to share information with regard to cyber crime and to provide technical aid to any internet user victimized by the crime.
Myanmar, one of the five ASEAN members to have established such team so far, would seek for joining the Asia-Pacific CERT in which the country has held an observer status.
Meanwhile, Myanmar is nearing completion of the draft of a cyber law, signaling a step closer to completing legislation on the use of computer and information.
Myanmar enacted the Computer Science Development Law in 1996 and the Electronic Transaction Law in April 2004, becoming the 4th ASEAN member to have introduced such legislation after Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Myanmar established its e-NTF to support information technology development after it joined in signing the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement initiated at the regional summit in Singapore in 2000.