Cuba: Computerizing in a Cybersecurity Environment

At the recent “Mesa Redonda” (Round Table), weekly television opinion and debate show dedicated this time to the subject of the “Roads of Computerization in Cuba”, Miguel Gutiérrez, Director of Information Technology of the Ministry of Communications, stressed the importance of replacing foreign-made applications by homemade ones.

“This measure eliminates imports for license payments and mobilizes our productive forces,” he said. The expert also referred to the protection of the personal data of Cuban Internet users.

He reiterated that steps are being taken in that extent to elaborate a norm –process led by the Ministry of Justice with the participation of other entities, and pointed out that the current juncture in the country allows to see this issue more comprehensively.

Gutiérrez dug deeper into future cybersecurity-related actions to provide the population with the necessary tools in that order.

“We should continue our efforts to increase cybersecurity culture in the population, in all workers, in all leaders. Everybody should have that culture”, he said.

In his speech, Gutiérrez also approached certain phenomena spread today that are linked, among others, to the dissemination of fake news and banal contents.

He explained that such a situation has an international scope, but several countries are already taking steps to reduce the proliferation of those contents.

He informed that in Cuba “We are also assessing how to act on that dangerous phenomenon.”

He specified that “It is not normal to consider ordinary that people access harmful contents that do not correspond with the aspirations of our society.”

The official announced that the entity is working to promote that people behave ethical and respectfully in the cyberspace, as they do in the real world. As for those who conceal or forge their identity in the cyberspace, he urged them to be authentic and maskless because that prevents our identity from being forged.

“They are matters to continue stressing to prevent the cyberspace from becoming something that is not in keeping with what we want to promote.”

Translated by Jorge Mesa Benjamin / CubaSi Translation Staff