Government working on laws governing drones

By Maurice Okore in Mombasa

A government effort is underway to put guidelines and restrictions on how private citizens can use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS), also known as drones, the state minister for ICT, Nyombi Thembo has said.

Thembo said the main desire of the measure is to protect the privacy of Ugandans from drone cameras that can often go undetected.

Thembo was speaking at the inaugural regional ICT summit dubbed Connect East Africa that opened on Tuesday in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa and closes on April 2, 2015.

Connect East Africa aims to establish a platform for collaboration, capacity building and knowledge sharing between governments and the ICT sector with a view of linking and hastening implementation of government IT projects to world-class standards.

“Drones have come and they are here to stay. It’s a technology that has come and we cannot stop it. So a proper framework on how to use drones is in the pipeline. We should be open to experimenting and utilizing drones,” Thembo said.

Thembo also said that government was putting in place a computer emergency response team to deal with cyber-crime.

He said cybercrime was a problem government was still grappling with and that criminals have become more sophisticated. He added that regional cooperation is crucial in the fight against cybercrime.