(FILE PHOTO / REUTERS)
The proposed investigation by appropriate committees in the upper chamber was contained in Senate Resolution No. 777.
“The offices of the individual senators have received a number of complaints from constituents about an alarming rise in social media accounts inexplicably being hacked, taken over, and used for nefarious purposes, including pornography and fraud,” he resolution reads.
It cited the hacking of the Youtube live stream channel of Radio Veritas and the Facebook page of the Diocese of Antipolo and the accounts of its priests early this year.
The resolution also mentioned how the Facebook accounts of the Diocese of Kidapawan and its Bishop, Most Rev. Jose Colin M. Bagaforo, D.D., were recently “targeted and misused to share explicit content and to attempt to swindle funds.”
“Despite the above-stated laws, users of information and communications technology, specifically social media accounts and pages, are unable to find prompt and sufficient recourse to prevent and abate these breaches in cybersecurity and the resulting damage,” Hontiveros said in the resolution.
Among the laws she mentioned are the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Act of 2015.
The anti-cybercrime law protects the integrity of computer systems, networks, and databases from all forms of misuse, abuse, and illegal access, and provides penalties for cybercrimes and other computer-related offenses while the DICT law tasks the agency to ensure and protect the rights of information and communications technology users.
DICT is also the office in charge of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center created under the cybercrime law, the resolution pointed out.
Even the Philippine National Police has sounded the alarm on the increasing number of hacking cases.
Just this year, the police recorded 743 Facebook hacking incidents from January to June alone.
“These figures demonstrate a concerning upward trend, indicating a substantial increase in cases involving Facebook hacking over the years,” the PNP said in July.