Nigeria's Proposed Cyber Crime Bill: Penalties of 5 Years Imprisonment, N10million Fine Or A Death Sentence.

 

Strong laws have been put in place to correct and punish internet users for inappropriate online behaviors, according to the new Cyber Crime Bill.

Using offensive languages on other people, raining insults or even generally using abusive words on social networking sites now come with strict punishments of jail terms ranging from 12 months to five years for internet users in Nigeria.

According to this Bill which is still pending, a death penalty could also be given to offenders under some circumstances.

Here is a list of 'inappropriate online behavior' which will be tagged as offenses for Nigerian internet users, and their punishments as proposed by the Cyber Crime Bill 2014;

- insulting someone else publicly, through a computer system or network, counts as an offense and will be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years or to a fine of not less than N10m or to both fine and imprisonment.

- If you circulate or make any racist and xenophobic material available online, you get a jail term of five years.

- Cyber-criminals, who hide under the anonymity of the Internet to bully, harass other users of online platforms also risk jail terms when the law comes into full force.

- Anyone found guilty of posting messages deemed “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene” or messages aimed at “causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety” to another online user gets a jail term of 12 months

- If you bully, threaten or harass another person, through “information and communication technologies” or posts messages online that contains “threats to kidnap or injure” another person, you will be jailed five years or pay a fine of N15m or both.

- If you commit an offense against what the bill calls “critical national information infrastructure” which results in death, automatically, a death sentence will be prescribed for you!

According to the bill, Internet service providers will be required to keep all traffic data and subscriber information for the purpose of prosecuting those suspected of committing cyber-crimes. The service providers are expected to provide necessary assistance towards the identification, apprehension and prosecution of offenders, failure of which makes them liable to fines and or jail terms.

Part V, Section four of the bill prescribes the Office of the National Security Adviser as the co-coordinating body for all security and enforcement agencies when the bill becomes law.