Doha: A draft law on combating cyber crime has been referred to the State Cabinet for approval, according to a senior Ministry of Interior (MoI) official.
The government is taking the issue of cyber crime very seriously and strict legal action is being mulled against hackers as well as those involved in defaming, insulting or harming the interest of others through the Internet, Al Sharq reported yesterday.
The Ministry has prepared the draft law in collaboration with Qatar’s telecoms sector regulator, the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQatar), spending a year, according to the daily. “The draft law to combat cyber crime has been sent to the General Secretariat of the Cabinet for approval,” Brigadier Hamad Ahmed Al Mohanadi, Director of Legal Affairs at MoI, said. He said crimes committed over the Internet have increased off late and they have come to affect Qatar severely. According to some estimates, more than $1 trillion is lost globally every year due to cyber crimes. In Qatar, the MoI booked as many as 158 cases of cyber fraud last year.
Social media channels of Qatar’s leading organisations including Al Jazeera and Qatar Foundation (QF) were hacked earlier by the loyalists of the Syrian regime.
According to recent reports, some 30 percent of youth in Qatar is exposed to inappropriate content on the Internet. Without giving details, Al Mohanadi said international and regional charters on cyber crime have also been included in the draft law.
In the existing setup, the Qatari Criminal penal code number 11 for 2011 contains some seven clauses that deal with curbing cyber crime. This includes penalties for hackers, fraudsters and people spreading hate speech on the Internet among other crimes.
“Committing cyber crimes has become very easy and it is increasing day by day,” Al Mohanadi was quoted saying.
Impersonating others is one of the most frequently committed crimes on the Internet, according to Major Ali Hassan Al Kubaisi, Head of the Department of Financial Crimes section at the MoI’s Search and Follow-up Department. The Peninsula
