The Maltese are being called to give their feedback on new digital rights to be entrenched into the Maltese Constitution to reflect today’s digital lifestyle. These include the right to internet access with no threats from authorities and service providers to have access curtailed, the right to access information and services online, and the right to limit how much personal information is given to third parties online.

Several proposals are put forward on the role of the State

Last week the Ministry for Infrastructure, Transport and Communication presented a White Paper with proposals in the wake of the ACTA controversy early this year.

Last February, in the heat of the controversy around the world – that even sparked a protest in Valletta – Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi called for legislation to establish new digital rights to internet access, rights to access information online, online freedom of expression, and the right to informational self-determination.

As a result, MITC commissioned an academic study to lay the groundwork for the legislation. The study, compiled by Claudio Grech, former MITA chairman and consultant to Communications Minister Austin Gatt, proposes the enactment of constitutional reform to establish principles comprising negative and positive obligations on the State.

A new bill, entitled Constitution (Amendment) Act, 2012 has been drafted and is proposed as part of the White Paper.

The Bill’s objectives are to “recognise, promote and protect information and communication technologies including electronic communications networks as a tool for the enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms and provides for the recognition, promotion and protection of new rights including the right of access to the underlying infrastructures, the right of access to information through information and communication technologies, including electronic communications networks, the right to share and impart information through the use of information and communication technologies, including electronic communications networks, the right to informational self-determination and privacy and to regulate the restrictions of such rights and ensure judicial protection and due process.”

In the draft Bill included in the White Paper, digital rights comprise the right to access services and applications through ICTs (both physical infrastructure and content); the right to use services and applications through ICTs; the right to share information through ICT; and the right to impart information through ICTs.

Several proposals are put forward on the role of the State, which should recognise, promote and safeguard the citizen’s right to access the internet and should undertake to refrain from introducing laws that unnecessarily impinge on internet access to receive and send ideas and which hinder the right to informational access and which are unjustifiable or unnecessary in a democratic society.

The State should recognise, promote and safeguard a citizen’s right to what is called “informational self-determination and privacy”, that is, the right of an individual to decide what information about himself should be communicated to others and under what circumstances, through any media, including on the internet, regardless of frontiers. The State should undertake not to introduce restrictions which would hinder the right to informational self-determination and privacy.

The White Paper also makes it clear that the State should ensure that no laws, especially intellectual property laws, permit users to be disconnected from internet access through the adoption of any three-strike or graduated response mechanism. These sanctions have been suggested and even implemented in other countries.

The White Paper on the introduction of digital rights in the Constitution of Malta can be accessed at www.mitc.gov.mt/digitalrights. Feedback can be submitted at consultations.mitc@gov.mt by November 30.