While the South African Police Service had highly skilled cyber specialists, there were not enough of them and there was no overarching policy to protect the security of SA’s interconnected computer network, Prof Basie von Solms told Parliament’s trade and industry portfolio committee. The committee is holding public hearings on draft amendments to the National Gambling Act that would regulate interactive gambling, which is not allowed in SA.

Prof Solms said a draft cyber-security strategy was circulated in 2010 by the government but nothing further had been heard of it. Without a cyber policing unit with compliance inspectors, cyber crime and cyber terrorism would just increase.

Most countries had a computer security incident response team that tracked global trends in cyber crime and virus attacks to spread awareness and propose measures to address them.

"We are allowing citizens to use the internet more and more but are not protecting them."

He believed Parliament had an obligation to conduct oversight of the cyber security of government departments and other state entities. The failure to exercise this oversight was partly to blame, he said, for the debacle at the Postbank as no check had been made of its computer security system.

Democratic Alliance MP Jacques Smalle agreed with the professor. "As the electronic media is growing with a rapid rate, we believe that it will be necessary to regulate the electronic communications by means of some sort of cyber policing (force), which must be well trained." Officials doing the work would need to be trained by an accredited institution.

Prof Solms urged that no attempt be made to prohibit access to online gambling sites. Instead, online gambling should be legalised under very strict conditions to secure the confidentiality and security of information of individual players as well as ensure access control.

Among the benefits of legalisation were the licence fees and taxes to be paid by operators, giving players peace of mind and lowering the risk of fraud, identity theft and cyber crime.

Betfair public affairs manager Tom Tuxworth said Betfair, one of the world’s biggest world’s biggest online betting companies and which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, estimated that if correctly regulated, online gambling in SA could generate revenue of R6bn.

The global industry was expected to grow about 10% over the next five years.

Mr Tuxworth said the law should regulate all products, but tax gross profit rather than turnover and ensure high standards of player protection and sporting integrity. It should fight money laundering and fraud,

"Online-specific regulation is required to protect customers and to enable effective taxation. Onerous regulation, limited product offerings and high taxes force customers to the offshore and unregulated markets, while realistic regulation limits losses to offshore operators and protects players."