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Hugh Graham
Opposition spokesman on science, technology and commerce, Hugh Graham is warning that the breach of the JAMCOVID-19 application, which may have exposed the personal data of thousands of travelers, will not inspire confidence in the Government’s much touted National Identification System (NIDS).
“Jamaicans would have every justification to be suspicious of the security of their data associated with the NIDS,” Graham told
Loop News.
“I am sure this vulnerability (breach) is a great cause for concern and persons would not be running to get signed up (to the NIDS),” the Member of Parliament for North West St Catherine added.
Having missed a stated deadline to have the newly-revised National Identification and Registration Bill, 2020, debated and passed into law by the end of the year, the Government is now pushing to have a joint select committee tasked with examining the legislation wrap its work early in the new year.
The committee, which is chaired by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, will begin meetings on January 5, 2021. Various groups, organisations and individuals have been given until January 29, to make submissions.
Last week, Prime Minister Andrew Holness tabled the new NIDS Bill in the House of Representatives. After opening remarks from himself and Opposition leader Mark Golding, debate on the Bill was postponed until after the joint select committee completes its deliberations.
Ruel Reid (left) and Professor Fritz Pinnock
Former Education Minister, Ruel Reid, and President of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), Professor Fritz Pinnock, along with their three co-accused, will have to wait until February of next year to learn whether criminal charges against them will be dismissed.
Reid, his wife Sharen and their daughter, Sharelle, along with Pinnock and Brown’s Town Division Councillor, Kim Brown-Lawrence, are facing a number of criminal charges following a corruption probe in relation to the Education Ministry and the CMU.
The five accused appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Friday, where a ruling was to be made in relation to whether the cases against them should continue.