INSA bans 3‚998 ICT devices from entering the country

Addis Ababa, August 19, 2022 (FBC) – Surveillance cameras used for illegal snoop, drones that have a high level of threat and are used for espionage and various terrorist attacks; foreign satellite phones, GPS, radio communications, telecom fraud devices that can cause huge losses to the country’s economy and cannot be controlled by Ethiotelecom; high-capacity mining servers and battlefield binoculars have been banned from entering the country, said Eshetu Buresa, Head of the Information Communication and Technology Division at Information Network Security Administration (INSA).

One of the core missions of INSA is to protect national interests by building the capacity to ensure information infrastructure security.

In 2021/22 fiscal year, the Administratin has monitored 754 institutions and organizations and 690 of them have been given permission to use IT equipment by importing 77,350 those devices, and have been given the green light to serve in the procurement control process; where as 3,998 of ICT equipment have been banned from entering the country, stated Ato Eshetu.

He also mentioned that in the previous fiscal year, a total of 25,006 ICT devices have been registered by the administration.

The aims of registering devices are to identify those who use technologies legally and illegally; to control technological devices that pose a national threat; to create awareness so that users can identify and control the harms and benefits of the technology devices they use and not to pass them on to third parties; identify the spread of technology at the national level and open control offices in different parts of our country as necessary to monitor and control, added the Official.

He urged individuals, institutions and government bodies to take the necessary precautions and monitoring, realize that if ICT devices are not properly controlled and are found in the hands of illegal entities, the damage and risk will be very high at the national level.