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The Economic Development Minister has been given new powers to fine telecommunications providers up to £10,000 per day for network failures following several 999 outages in recent years.
Deputy Kirsten Morel this week proposed amending current legislation for telecoms providers to safeguard Jersey’s critical infrastructure.
The new telecoms security framework, which aims to improve digital security and reliability in response to evolving cyber threats, gives the Government and regulators new powers to supervise telecom providers.
Explaining why he was putting forward the proposal in the States Assembly this week, Deputy Morel said: "Jersey is rightly proud of the connectivity provided by our telecoms networks and services.
"Indeed, the strength of our economy and our excellent reputation as an International Financial Services Centre, as well as the centre of innovation is based not only on our laws and high standards but also on the island's secure high-speed digital connectivity."
Pictured: Deputy Kirsten Morel.
The new law, which was approved on Wednesday with 44 votes, grants the Minister powers to impose penalties of up to 10% of a telecoms provider’s turnover or £10,000 per day for ongoing violations that contravene their legal duties.
This legislation comes in the wake of several instances across the last five years where islanders were unable to call 999 due to network failures.
The report accompanying the proposition explained: “The Royal Court has the power to impose an unlimited fine where a public communications provider is guilty of the offence of continuing to provide a service or make associated facilities available in breach of a direction suspending their ability to do so.”
The proposals included giving the Minister is now also able to designate certain vendors as “high-risk” and place restrictions on telecom providers’ use of their equipment. They also involved granting additional oversight capabilities to the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority (JCRA) and £250,000 in annual funding to support these new responsibilities.
The Economic Development Minister argued that the costs involved are justified to prevent potential compromises to Jersey's networks and critical infrastructure.
"It is our belief that the costs of maintaining and securing our connectivity will be less than the costs Jersey, islanders, and businesses would otherwise face should our networks and services become compromised, data be stolen, or our national critical infrastructure ceases to work," he said.
Pictured: JT was fined £380,000 last year for an outage which left islanders unable to call emergency services for almost an hour.
At the end of last year, JT – whose revenue stood at £148m in 2023 and gross profit at £85.7m – was fined £380,000 for an outage in 2022 which left islanders unable to call emergency services for almost an hour – something a watchdog said could have had "potentially life-threatening consequences".
An investigation concluded that “JT failed to take all reasonable steps, within its control, to ensure the integrity of its network”.
This licence condition breach was considered the “most serious due to the length of time over which JT could and should have acted to uphold the reliability and resilience of its network”.
The watchdog has issued financial penalties and directions to JT for eight previous incidents since January 2020, all relating to the public emergency call service.
New law could see £10k daily fines for telecom service failures
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