According to a post monitored on Kalemba, Government has announced that the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Acts are now fully operational and the Zambia Police Service has deployed cyber crimes officers to all provincial headquarters across the country.
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In a joint statement, Technology and Science Minister Felix Mutati, alongside his Home Affairs and Internal Security counterpart, Jack Mwiimbu said the Zambia Information Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) and other agencies were also coordinating to ensure harmonised enforcement and capacity building.
This follows an urgent matter without notice raised by Roan Member of Parliament Joe Chibuye who wanted to know what government was doing to protect MPs from scammers using their social media pages to exploit the public and misrepresent parliamentarians.
In response, Mutati and Mwiimbu said government had taken several steps to address cyber threats targeting lawmakers and the general public, especially following the enactment and commencement of the Cyber Security Act and the Cyber Crimes Act on May 12, 2025.
The ministers acknowledged the growing risk posed by online platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram, where fake pages have been used to defraud citizens, spread falsehoods and impersonate public figures, particularly members of parliament.
They disclosed that between January and June this year, ZICTA recorded 621 Facebook hacking cases, all of which were successfully recovered, along with 224 impersonation cases.
Out of those, 34 fake accounts were taken down and on WhatsApp, there were 462 hacking cases and 352 impersonation cases involving VIPs.
Telegram recorded 123 hacking cases and 52 cases of impersonation.
Despite this, only 21 cyber related cases were reported to the police during the same period, 12 of which are currently before the courts while nine remain under investigation.
The Ministers revealed that the total financial loss stood at K7,700.
To tackle the rising threat, the ministers said the dual-track laws had created a dedicated framework for prosecuting offenses such as identity theft, impersonation, cyber bullying, fraud and unauthorised access to data, while also establishing robust cybersecurity standards for national infrastructure.
They disclosed that government had also rolled out several initiatives to strengthen citizen protection, which include, full activation of the *707# short code for reporting suspicious mobile numbers and the deactivation of over 10,000 SIM cards in early 2025, preventing losses of up to K16.1 million.
Further, there are ongoing engagements with Meta (Facebook) to verify pages of public officials and prevent impersonation, national campaigns on digital safety and cyber hygiene, an upcoming anti-fraud awareness campaign scheduled for August 2025, introduction of AI-based spam filters by telecom providers and the development of a mobile device verification portal to block stolen or scam linked devices had also been taken up.
The ministers urged MPs to activate two-factor authentication on their social media accounts, apply for page verification, and use official reporting channels to curb digital threats.
They said protecting parliamentarians and the public from online exploitation was not just a cybersecurity concern, but a matter of national security and democratic integrity.
“With the Cyber Crimes Act and the Cyber Security Act now in force, Zambia has taken a strong step forward in building a safer digital environment,” the joint statement read.
Government reaffirmed its commitment to fully implement the new cyber laws and protect all Zambians from the growing dangers of the digital world…https://kalemba.news/…/cyber-acts-now-fully…/