Jamaica’s trendy digital society should be constructed on a stable basis of belief, privateness and safety of residents’ information rights.
This has been emphasised by Minister with out Portfolio within the Workplace of the Prime Minister with duty for Effectivity, Innovation, and Digital Transformation, Senator the Hon. Ambassador Audrey Marks.
Addressing Tuesday’s (July 1) Privateness and Authorized Administration Consultants (PLMC) Prioritising Privateness: Defend, Comply, Thrive convention, held on the College of the West Indies (UWI) Regional Headquarters in St. Andrew, she underscored that digital innovation will solely succeed when folks belief the methods behind it.
“That’s the reason Jamaica’s digital technique revolves round three key pillars to strengthen belief. Effectivity, which is modernising service supply; Innovation – leveraging rising applied sciences; and Information Governance – making certain moral, lawful dealing with of information,” Ambassador Marks mentioned.
In the meantime, she shared that as on the finish of 2024, 1,000 organisations had been registered with the Workplace of the Data Commissioner (OIC).
Noting that it’s a promising signal, she reasoned that registration is barely the beginning and urged companies to alter how they suppose, act and innovate relating to digital transformation and securing privateness.
“Jamaica is transferring past mere compliance right into a tradition the place privateness is a shared worth, simply as very important as innovation itself, and organisations and companies should catch up,” she mentioned.
Ambassador Marks defined that information privateness with out cybersecurity is a false sense of safety, as breaches, ransomware assaults and different schemes are every day realities.
“JaCIRT (Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Crew) works to make sure we not solely construct safe methods but in addition reply quickly when one thing goes unsuitable. Collectively, the OIC and JaCIRT type Jamaica’s two-pronged defence. One enforces lawful information dealing with, and the opposite protects in opposition to malicious digital threats,” she mentioned.
Ambassador Marks added that as Jamaica strikes right into a extra linked future, privateness can’t be an afterthought. Somewhat, “it should be the DNA of every little thing that we construct”.
