Prague, April 12 (CTK) – The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Czech parliament, passed an amendment to the cyber security law today that would apply to operators of information systems in transport and energy industry as well.
The Senate, the upper house, is yet to assess the bill.
The legislation also provides that the independent cyber security office will be established. At present, this agenda falls under the National Security Office (NBU).
The lower house passed the amendment by 161 votes of the 168 MPs present. No one voted against it.
The legislation has transposed the respective European directive in the government wording.
The Czech Republic is one of the first EU member states to transpose this EU directive, several months ahead of the deadline, said Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) who called cyber security one of the priorities of his cabinet this year.
Under the amendment, the newly included groups of entities will have to take steps to prevent possible security risks. They will be obliged to report possible cyber incidents to security offices.
This duty will also apply to the providers of digital services, for instance, platforms for electronic trading and browsers.
The new National Office for Cyber and Information Security to be seated in Brno was added to the amendment through a proposed change submitted by the lower house security’s committee.
It will be established by the government commissioner for this sphere, Dusan Navratil. He ended in the post of the NBU chief where he was replaced by Jiri Lang, who headed the BIS civilian counter-intelligence service for 13 years.
Sobotka said today if the Senate passed the bill smoothly, the new office could be established in the summer, at the latest in the autumn.
The respective European directive is to secure a common security level of networks and information systems in the EU that create one of the fundamental elements of the functioning of its internal market.
