By URN
Telecommunications regulator, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has informed the parliamentary rules, privileges and discipline committee that they cannot verify and confirm the ownership and authenticity of the Facebook and Twitter accounts of Mityana Municipality MP, Francis Zaake.
The committee chaired by Bugweri County MP, Abdu Katuntu is currently investigating Zaake for the alleged misconduct and use of ‘unparliamentary’ language against deputy speaker of parliament, Anita Among.
In their submission to the committee, Abudu-Sallam Waiswa, the head of legal and compliance at UCC said that Facebook and Twitter are over-the-top applications provided by technology firms based in the United States of America (USA).
‘Whereas Twitter and Facebook do obtain similar identification information about their account holders at the point of account opening, the commission does not have direct access to their registers of such information. Due to the different in jurisdiction, a court order is required to be presented to Twitter or Facebook to provide this information,” said Waiswa in part.
He added that whereas the commission has acquired different technical capabilities to facilitate the implementation of its regulatory mandate under the Uganda Communications Act, 2013, the respective system to facilitate such an assessment independently is currently undergoing technical upgrades and therefore not available.
The current probe by the committee follows a complaint raised by the Bardege-Layibi Division MP, Martin Ojara Mapenduzi on the floor of parliament in which he proposed to move a motion for Zaake’s removal from the parliamentary commission, the top most organ of the House.
He noted that Zaake’s outburst on social media about Among was in breach of the code of conduct for a member of parliament particularly a requirement to conduct themselves in a manner, which will maintain and strengthen the public trust and confidence in the integrity of parliament.
“…last week, the nation woke up to a rant by a member of this House, a commissioner of parliament, the honourable Zaake Francis through his known social media handles where he insulted the integrity of this House and above all, the integrity of the office of the speaker,” Mapenduzi said in relation to a tweet on Zaake’s social media handle.
Mapenduzi further complained formally before the committee and tabled a printed picture of Zaake’s alleged post on Facebook. According to UCC, the Facebook page ‘Zaake Francis Butebi’ exists on Facebook and is associated with the email address: zaakefrancis12@gmail.com. Waiswa told MPs that the Facebook account is verified by Facebook.
“A further query revealed that that account – the Facebook account bears a blue tick. A blue tick means that it is officially verified by Facebook and according to the published standards by Facebook by the time an account is given a blue tick, it means that it has been verified based on some official documentation that is provided by the user of the account. Therefore based on that, the commission deduced that the person who opened that account must have given Facebook some official identification that proves his name to be honourable Zaake Francis Butebi. The commission unfortunately could not access the identification documents that could have been used because this is all kept by Facebook in the US, said Waiswa.
On the other hand, he informed the committee that no information has been obtained about the Twitter account, @ZaakeFrancis since the alleged tweet is not on the account.
“No information was obtained on the Twitter account and this was mainly because, the posts were all deleted and all associated contacts and links regarding that account were all deleted off that @ZaakeFrancis account. The commission further guides that it can undertake further investigations on this matter. But this can only be done if we can get the physical devices of that the user could have used to post the subject posts. If the devices can be availed to the commission, the forensic extraction can be done to confirm whether the subject messages were ever typed on those devices,” he added.
Katuntu asked UCC officials whether the Twitter account in question was still active and Micheal Bamwesigye, the UCC head of IT and security said that it was still active and read out the different tweets made in the past few days.
The committee further demanded the clerk to parliament to avail MP Zaake’s official file to confirm his email address and when opened, the file indicated that Zaake revealed three email addresses with zaakefrancis@gmail.com as his personal contact and ssembuusiemmy@gmail.com as the next of kin 1st person.
The email address: zaakefrancis12@gmail.com identified by UCC to be associated with the Facebook account is also indicated in the data file at parliament as MP Zaake’s next of kin 2nd person.
Isaac Otimgiw, the Padyere County MP raised concern about UCC’s failure to authenticate social media accounts yet the country seeks to address the misuse of the same accounts.
“It clears shows that UCC in my view is not ready to verify…I don’t know whether you’re aware that there is a bill that is going to be tabled in parliament for computer misuse and that will be mainly to avoid such things happening online. But it seems to us that you will not be able to help the courts if such evidences are needed because it is beyond your reach,” said Otimgiw.
However, Katuntu said that it was careless to require UCC to explain what they are able to do and what they can’t. He said that it is important for the committee not to expose UCC. Samuel Opio, the Kole North MP also raised concern about the information provided by UCC regarding Facebook which the entity confirmed as blocked as the evidence tabled before parliament and to the committee a post from Facebook.
He questioned the admissibility of the evidence by MP Mapenduzi considering that UCC says that Facebook is a blocked site.
“Facebook is currently blocked. However the information that has been provided from Hon. Mapenduzi it’s clear that it’s from a Facebook page. My concern therefore becomes on the admissibility of that evidence and possibly whether they have information of a similar nature of the Twitter account. I see some bit of technical difficulty in admissibility of the evidence by Hon. Mapenduzi considering the fact that UCC says this is a blocked site. There is a bit of challenge on my part,” said Opio.
The committee resolved that they would have an in-house discussion on the matter.
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