IT competency in SL may reach 70% in five years – CB Governor

Sandasen Marasinghe

Plans are afoot by the Government to increase the Information Technology competency to 65 to 70 percent within next five years, said Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said.

He was speaking as Guest of Honour at the Inaugural Session of the National Preparedness Against Cyber Attacks Cyber Security Summit 2013 at the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel yesterday.

The Central Bank Governor said computer literacy has increased to 35 percent due to the government’s commitment from 5 percent in 2009.

He added that Sri Lanka is widely using the IT field to provide public services that it has become the life blood of Sri Lanka. He added the Defence and Urban Development Ministry Secretary was able to steer the IT programme from a defence point of view yielding commendable benefits.

He also said with the widespread use of Information Technology, 91 percent of the privacy of the people is lost which is becoming a threat to the entire wold. He added that the Central Bank and the other banks in the country are using precautionary measures to minimize threats of Cyber attacks and has faced at certain incidents successfully. He added tha the Cybey crimes could be more worse than White Collar Crimes.

The Central Bank Governor said the use of IT has rapidly improved in Sri Lanka over the last decade and today, people cannot do without IT technology. IT is used in the media, by the health sector, in businesses, transport, crime detection, to combat terrorism etc. He added that it has opened new business areas of creating the software for example in Cricket telecasts and analysis. He also added that IT could be used in positive and negative ways and working against cyber attacks is a corporate responsibility.

The Cyber Security Summit 2013 was organized by CICRA consultancies and Daily FT.