Pretoria - South Africa must take care to balance its technological advancement with sound legislation that is designed to protect children from pornographic content.
Speaking on Tuesday, during an oversight visit to the Film and Publication Board (FPB) offices in Centurion, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications chairperson, Joyce Clementine Moloi-Moropa, said while advances in digitalisation are crucial, it is equally important to safeguard the young from other undesirable spin-offs that come with this.
“Digitalisation is critical. Because we are a growing community at an international level within the digital world, we know that there is a challenge. Protecting children becomes central. We need to ensure that children are protected. Our laws must focus on how children can be protected.
“We know from the FPB presentations in Parliament that there are some amendments of legislation that are going to be brought to us.
“We are aware that because we are a growing society in terms of technology, there will be a need for the amendment of the act relating to information communication and technology (ICT), and there will be areas where we will be changing the legislation to ensure that we also move along with the times,” said Moloi-Moropa.
She said the committee’s visit was necessary to get a first-hand account of what the FBP does.
“Besides getting presentations in Parliament, we decided to do an oversight visit so that we are able to see if the documents, information and explanations that are always given to us do tally with what we are going to see practically.”
Moloi-Moropa noted and applauded the FPB’s strategy of employing young people.
“We’ve noticed that the personnel are mostly young people. In fact, the nature of the industry requires that the [youth], who are familiar with technological advancement, should be at the fore. It shows growth in terms of digitalisation in our society,” she said.
The committee has already visited the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) and on Wednesday, it will visit Brand SA.
“We still have to do the oversight visit of the SABC before we finally sit with the Department of Communications.
“When we leave here today, we should be confident as the committee what we need to focus on, what are the gaps and what progress [has been made] so that we are able to lift the industry to ensure that we are moving along with the international community,” said Moloi-Moropa.
The FPB’s CEO, Themba Wakashe, welcomed the visit.
“We are very happy about this first visit of the committee to our offices, where they will see and understand the quality of work that we do as the organisation.
“We will use this opportunity to tell them about the general operation of the organisation and brief them about our digital migration strategy. We will also use the platform to talk about the importance of amending our Act because it needs to be amended.
“Of course, we will also brief the committee about the work that we are doing in the Southern Africa region and the entire African continent. We are productive because of this team of very young, energetic and well-educated staff members.” - SAnews.gov.za
