Guidelines for the recognition of telecoms industry representative bodies (IRBs) by the minister of communications, in terms of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act, have been issued, four years after the original law was passed.
A government notice was released yesterday stating minister of communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri approved these guidelines while attending the International Telecommunications Union conference in Turkey, in November.
The guidelines, showing what criteria and structures IRBs should put in place in order to be recognised by the minister, are important for industry and government to know how to deal with each other. They form part of an overall policy preferring self-regulation to that of direct government intervention.
"These guidelines may be late, but they are most welcome. What is most gratifying to see is that government has taken a lot of what industry has suggested for these guidelines and incorporated them," says Mike Silber, regulatory advisor for the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) and the Wireless Applications Service Providers Association (WASPA).
Framework
According to the guidelines, the IRB criteria cover various aspects that govern the behaviour of IRBs' membership, such as professional conduct, complaint and disciplinary procedures, codes of conduct, and monitoring and enforcement of procedures. The guidelines also enforce the consumer protection provisions of the ECT Act.
"An important aspect is that ISPs cannot be held liable for unlawful content (such as child pornography) appearing across their networks, because they are not content providers. Those that generate their own content, however, are not exempted," Silber says.
He says this provision negates comments made last year by the Film and Publications Board - the official government censorship organ - that holds ISPs liable for this.
Silber says the ECT Act and the guidelines do allow for an ISP to comply with takedown notices and not be held liable by their clients, or to ignore the takedown notices, if the complaint seems frivolous, without any comeback from the law enforcement agencies.
The bodies
ISPA and WASPA are the two main industry bodies set up within the Internet and telecommunications sectors representing, mainly, the smaller companies participating in the sectors. Another IRB for wireless Internet service providers is being set up in the Western Cape.
"It will be interesting to see if the telecommunications operators will begin setting up their own IRBs, such as the three cellular network operators and the two fixed-line operators," Silber says.
Department of Communications spokesman Albi Modise says the guidelines were originally published in the Government Gazette on 14 December (notice number 2974).
Modise says no industry association has applied for recognition yet as they still have to consult with their members to see if they meet the requirements and what should be done in order to do so.
"There is no cut-off date and so IRBs can apply at anytime for recognition. We shall be publishing the guidelines on our Web site in the near future," he says.
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