A number of digital-related policies have recently been discussed or proposed by stakeholders in Sri Lanka. These include a national digital policy and a National Strategic Roadmap for Internet of Things (IoT), data protection and cybersecurity Bills.
LIRNEasia, a digital policy think-tank, hosted a public discussion on “Digital Policies for Sri Lanka: Doing better than cut and paste,” at the Galle Face Hotel on September 27, 2019.
A panel of experts debated the issues, covering what policies and laws Sri Lanka neededs, why, and how these should be implemented.
“The past year or two, has seen large number of digital policies, strategies and laws being proposed and drafted by various governmental and non-governmental actors. Part of this is that we are catching up with a lot of policies we really do need, which many countries developed years ago. The other part seems to be ad hoc development of policy documents, irrespective of whether we need them or not,” said CEO of LIRNEasia, Helani Galpaya, who moderated the panel.
The panelists included Nalaka Gunewardene (Science Writer and Digital Media Analyst), Prof. Rohan Samarajiva (Chairman, ICT Agency), Sanduni Wickramasinghe (Senior Legal Officer, Mobitel), Sanjiva Weerawarna (Founder and Director, WS02) among others.
The panelists shared their views on what is needed to aid digital development in Sri Lanka, what has been done right and what should be done and what should be avoided, based on the learnings and experiences of other jurisdictions that have already addressed these digital issues.
Panelists debated the merits and demerits of adopting the National Digital Policy, the Strategic Roadmap on Internet of Things (IoT) and legislation related to cyber security and data protection in their current form.
The panelists also discussed the process by which digital wish lists and strategies issued by other stakeholders, for example, SLASSCOM’s AI Policy, and SLT’s Smart Sri Lanka initiative, are considered for wider adoption as national plans.
LIRNEasia is an Asia Pacific ICT policy and regulation think tank. Their mission is to catalyze policy change through research, to improve people’s lives in the emerging Asia Pacific by facilitating their use of hard and soft infrastructures through the use of knowledge, information and technology.
The discussion was organized as part of LIRNEasia’s celebration of its 15th Anniversary.
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