not do away with other legislation such as the Public Order and Security Act, the
Criminal Codification and Reform Act, the Access to Information and Protection
of Privacy Act as well as the Interception of Communications Act. These Acts will
continue to apply alongside the Cyber Crime and Cyber Security Act. Dzimbabwe
shared Jacqueline’s concerns that the definitions given in the draft Bill are too
broad and open to abuse. He gave an example of the definition of pornography
which could be interpreted to affect artistic work and in the long run the freedom
of expression. Both Jacqueline and Dzimbabwe also spoke of the excessive fines
and penalties which are not proportional to the acts which are criminalised under
the draft Bill.
During plenary a question was asked whether Zimbabwe had the skillset to enforce
not only the Cyber Crimes draft Bill when it becomes law. The other question was
on whether or not these broad definitions would criminalise normally legal actions
such as ethical or white hat hacking and running network penetration tests.
Another technical issue raised during plenary which would make it hard to enforce
this draft law included the extradition clause which empowers a court to extradite
a person to Zimbabwe so that such a person could stand trial in Zimbabwe under
the relevant circumstances.

25

Misa Zimbabwe Second Internet Governance Multi
Stakeholder Conference 21 September 2017

Select target paragraph3