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CommsWeek, CBT Develop App to Fight Hate Speech

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Communication Week Media Limited, publishers of Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, and Core Business Technologies Limited (CBT) have developed mobile phone application to enable the public to report hate speech in a bid to curb the spread of extremism and sectarianism.

 

Hate speech is speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender.

 

According to Ken Nwogbo, a Nigerian newspaper columnist, ICT Journalist and founder, Communication Week Media Limited, the App aims primarily to tackle the impunity of hate crimes.

 

“Hate speech is clear and present evil, the many wars across the world were caused by the crimes of hate speech, that was why we partnered with CBT, arguably one of Nigeria’s solution-oriented, dynamic and indigenous Information Technology and Solutions service provider to develop this App” Nwogbo added.

 

Compatible with both Android and iOS operating systems, the App called “Pana” tackles hate speech by establishing monitoring and evaluation units in the App.

 

Edward Essien, CEO of CBT, said “I do not support capital punishment for hate speech, that is why we developed the App to nip it in the bud. By sentencing hate speech offender to maximum penalty, the government is inadvertently promoting hate speech”

 

“By that, the government is promoting one section of the society against the other, the best thing to do it trace and trap such speech” he added.

 

The app enables citizens to report anonymously extremist speeches, banners or activities wherever they notice them. Users can send pictures, audio, video or a written message.

 

Such data and information received can be shared with police and other law-enforcement and regulatory authorities.

 


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Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

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Presidential Tax Reforms Committee Moves to Boost BPO Business in Nigeria

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Worried by the dwindling fortune of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) business in the country, Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee has identified the impediments to its growth and moves to remove them to ensure that the country takes a pride place in the sector.

Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the committee, said at a workshop for journalist in Lagos on Thursday that his committee identified tax structure in the country which hinders international organizations from hiring Nigerians living in the country to work for them.

“Our existing tax structure demands that any company outside of Nigeria that hires Nigerians living in the country to work remotely will be expected to pay tax on the company’s income as well as on the income of the Nigerian working for the company.

“This tax structure has pushed overseas companies away from Nigeria to countries such as India and Philippines that their BPO sector have grown exponentially. With the removal of tax on the company’s income, we have created a level playing ground for BPO business to flourish in the country,” he said.

It would be recalled that Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director general, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) had put the worth of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) ecosystem in the country at $285.8Million.

According to Inuwa, “today, Nigeria Outsourcing sector worth $285.8M employing 16,540 Nigerians mostly living in Nigeria and working for companies outside Nigeria.

“We started in 2020 with a strategy and engaged with the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) to develop the strategy and some of them started operations in the mid of 2020 and we want to expand this because we believe the sector will create more jobs than any other sector in Nigeria”.

Oyedele, added that his committee has proposed a single digit number of 8 taxes to be collected by all the tiers of governments in the country.

“One of the critical challenges facing the tax system in Nigeria is the shockingly high level of non-compliance as a result of low tax morale. Tax Morale is the willingness to comply with taxes and the belief that tax evasion is wrong,” he noted.

He said the principle behind these is to do away with nuisance taxes with very low revenue yield, high cost of collection and ultimate burden on the poor and small businesses.

“Focus on high revenue yielding taxes, that are broad-based and relatively ease to collect. Merge taxes and levies that are imposed on the same or substantially similar tax base. Institutionalize the tax harmonization reform to ensure sustainability,” he stated.

According to him, “the outcomes expected include; Eliminate informal & implicit taxes, harmonise tax administration, rationalize tax incentives, leverage technology and big data, modernise customs administration, simplify compliance, optimise resources and government assets.

Budget better – Restructure the budget (classify items under infrastructure; human capital investment; personnel cost, headcount & productivity; administrative overheads; debt service & sinking funds), fully implemented zero based budgeting, and introduce long term appropriation.

Spend better – Tackle systemic corruption, prioritise spending on basic needs to address multidimensional poverty, restrict borrowing to productive spending and self-financing projects, leverage PPP and equity financing for viable projects, enhance public procurement effectiveness.

Manage better – Leverage technology for revenue, debt, and expenditure management. Adhere to fiscal rules and benchmark with strict penalties for violations. Establish a national fiscal risk framework and processes to prevent, detect, and correct financial infractions.

Report better – Harmonise and standardise reporting, provide transparent and timely information, enhance audit & internal control, administer consequences.

The eight proposed taxes are; Income Tax; Value Added Tax; Property tax; Customs duties; Excise tax; Stamp duties; Special levy and Harmonised levy.


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NDPC Investigates 40 Financial Sector Operators over Data Breach

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Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has said it is investigating 40 banks, insurance companies, stock brokers and other operators in the financial sector over customers’ data breach.

NDPC Investigates 40 Financial Sector Operators over Data Breach

Dr Vincent Olatunji, national commissioner and CEO, who disclosed this at a breakfast meeting with Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DPCOs) in Lagos, said the commission would sanction the erring financial sector operators if found guilty.

Conquering the clouds on a journey to Ta Xua with the team – Road Trip Vietnam Team – Nếm TV

Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) mandates FG to collect 2% of annual turnover of any organisation guilty of data breach.

“We have beamed our search light on 40 players in the financial sector. We have written to them to explain why they have not been complying with data regulations and we may sanction them if they ‘re found guilty”, Dr Olatunji said.

The NDPC boss said the erring companies had been given 21 days to answer why they should not be sanctioned.

He also disclosed that licences of some inactive DPCOs would be revoked by year end while some new ones would be licensed.

He disclosed that there are over 500,000 data processors organisations in Nigeria, adding that all of them would be monitored on how they handle data of Nigerians.

While warning companies and government agencies collecting data of Nigerians in their course of operations against mishandling those data, he also assured Nigerians of adequate data protection.

He said though the commission was not afraid of lawsuits, it would not in any way trample on the rights of any organisation.

 

 


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Cybersecurity Skills Shortage Ranked as Biggest Risk to MSPs, Clients

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Sophos, a global leader of innovative security solutions that defeat cyberattacks, has released its inaugural “MSP Perspectives 2024” survey report, which found that the biggest day-to-day challenge facing Managed Service Providers (MSP) is keeping up with the latest cybersecurity solutions/technologies, cited by 39% of the MSPs surveyed.

 

Alongside this, MSPs indicated that hiring new cybersecurity analysts to keep up with customer growth and keep pace with the latest cyberthreats were also top challenges.

The survey also reveals that MSPs perceive the shortage of in-house cybersecurity skills to be the single biggest cybersecurity risk to both their own business and their clients’ organizations.

MSPs also perceive stolen access data and credentials and unpatched vulnerabilities to be amongst the biggest security risks to their customers.

The latest State of Ransomware 2024 report found that nearly a third (29%) of ransomware attacks started with compromised credentials, showing the prevalence of this entry vector.

“The speed of innovation across the cybersecurity battleground means it’s harder than ever for MSPs to keep up with threats and the cyber controls designed to stop them.

“When you couple this with a global skills shortage, which has made it infinitely more difficult for many MSPs to attract and retain cybersecurity analyst resources, its unsurprising that MSPs feel unable to keep pace with the changing threat landscape,” said Scott Barlow vice president of MSP at Sophos.

“This is all compounded by the need for 24×7 coverage as indicated in our 2023 Active Adversary report for Tech Leaders, which finds that 91% of ransomware attacks now happen out of business hours.”

In response to this complex threat landscape, there is growing demand for managed detection and response (MDR) services to provide always-on coverage. Currently 81% of MSPs offer an MDR service, and almost all (97%) MSPs that do not currently offer MDR plan to add it to their portfolio in the coming years.

Reflecting the shortage of in-house cybersecurity skills, 66% of MSPs use a third-party vendor to deliver the MDR service and a further 15% deliver jointly through their own SOC and a third-party vendor.

Topping the list of essential capabilities in a third-party MDR provider is the ability to provide a 24/7 incident response service.

MSPs are also streamlining their cybersecurity partnerships, working with a small number of vendors.

The study revealed that over half (53%) of MSPs work with just one or two cybersecurity vendors, rising to 83% that use between one and five.

Reflecting the effort and overhead of running multiple platforms, MSPs estimate that they could cut their day-to-day management time by 48% if they could manage all their cybersecurity tools from a single platform.

Other interesting findings from the report include:

·       99% of MSPs report an increase in demand for cyber insurance-related support, with the most common requests including clients wanting to implement an MDR service to improve their insurability (47%) or to receive help completing their insurance application (45%).

·       MSPs want flexibility from their MDR provider, with 71% saying it is “essential or very important” that the vendor can use telemetry from their existing security tools for threat detection and response.

·       MSPs in the U.S. lead the way in MDR service provision with almost all (94%) already offering MDR, compared to 70% in Germany, 62% in the U.K., and 58% in Australia.

“While MSPs have a huge job to do in protecting their customers against fast moving adversaries, there’s tremendous opportunity to grow their business and profitability if they can find the right security set up.

“The data shows that MSPs are strengthening their proposition and reducing overheads by amalgamating the platforms they use and engaging with third-party MDR vendors to expand their service offerings.

“As they look to build their security offering of the future, they should prioritize vendors that can offer a complete portfolio of industry-best, fully managed security services and solutions,” continued Barlow.

Data for the MSP Perspectives 2024 report comes from a vendor-agnostic survey of 350 MSPs across the U.S. (200), U.K. (50), Germany (50) and Australia (50). The survey was commissioned by Sophos and conducted by research house Vanson Bourne in March 2024.

Read the MSP Perspectives 2024 report for global findings and data by sector on Sophos.com.


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