{"id":151687,"date":"2017-01-20T08:07:56","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T06:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=151687"},"modified":"2020-02-21T18:05:56","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T16:05:56","slug":"you-could-face-3-years-in-jail-if-you-send-these-types-messages-over-facebook-or-whatsapp-even-if-theyre-private","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/151687\/you-could-face-3-years-in-jail-if-you-send-these-types-messages-over-facebook-or-whatsapp-even-if-theyre-private\/","title":{"rendered":"You could face 3 years in jail if you send these types of messages over Facebook or WhatsApp &#8211; even if they&#8217;re private"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The South African government recently criminalised malicious communications in South Africa, setting out\u00a0a number of vague new messaging rules which could see you\u00a0facing a hefty amount of jail time and\/or a fine &#8211; even if your message is private.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.justice.gov.za\/legislation\/bills\/CyberCrimesBill2017.pdf\">Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Bill<\/a><\/strong> which will be entered into parliamentary discussion in the coming weeks, has been introduced to bring South Africa in line with other countries&#8217; cyberlaws as well as the ever-growing threat of cyber crime.<\/p>\n<p>While the majority of the Bill\u00a0focuses on criminalising the theft and interference of data, it has also introduced new laws surrounding any &#8216;malicious&#8217; electronic communication.<\/p>\n<p>Your message could\u00a0result in jail time of up to 3 years and\/or a fine if:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It incites the causing of any damage to any property belonging to, or violence against, a person or a group of persons;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It intimidates, encourages or harasses a person to harm himself or herself or any other person;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It is inherently false in nature and it is aimed at causing mental, psychological, physical or economic harm to a specific person or a group of persons;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It is intimate in nature (aka nudity), and is distributed without the consent of the person involved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In addition, the Bill\u00a0compels all banking institutions, ISPs and cellular companies to assist in an investigation &#8211; allowing the government to access any pertinent private information stored on you as evidence.<\/p>\n<p>However, deputy minister of justice and constitutional development, John Jeffery has insisted that the new bill is\u00a0not an extension of government&#8217;s surveillance powers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cData is merely a means to commit offences such as fraud, damage of programmes and computer systems, extortion, forgery and uttering. It can also be used to commit murder by remotely switching of a respiratory system or terrorism by overloading the centrifuges of a nuclear station or remotely opening the sluices of a dam which causes large scale flooding,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/141901\/snowden-says-south-africa-must-fight-for-privacy-and-online-security\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Snowden says South Africa must fight for privacy and online security<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government has set out a number of vague new messaging rules which could see South Africans facing a hefty amount of jail time and\/or a fine &#8211; even if the message is private.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":68989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-151687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151687"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376115,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151687\/revisions\/376115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}