Government approves measures to strengthen cybersecurity

The Council of Ministers held on 24 October approved two bills in the field of cybersecurity and digital services.

The first is "a proposal to transpose the so-called NIS2 directive and the creation of a new cybersecurity legal scheme in Portugal." Leitão Amaro noted that "the last two weeks have clearly shown the importance of guaranteeing a secure cyber space and countering the vulnerability in the systems and Portuguese cyber space given the existence of threats from several origins.

"This draft bill will undergo public consultation following a meeting of the Cyberspace Security Higher Council- the public consultation will be posted on the platform for this purpose at the start of November. It shall run during November so the draft bill can be sent to Parliament following the State Budget work", he explained.

The scheme "sets a strengthening of the security measures that the entities, given their size and critical and essential nature of the services they handle" (health facilities, certain public administration bodies, communications or transportation infrastructures, entities with a greater number of workers) "will have to adopt".

Leitão Amaro mentioned three types of duties: adjusting security, reporting, and oversight. "On the part of the oversight authorities, the National Cybersecurity Centre or sector entities such as Anacom, for communications, will be given added powers to promote the adoption of cybersecurity strengthening practices, the duty of reporting in the event of an incident, and acting as swiftly as possible", he detailed.

Another bill was also approved that "in practice, implements the Digital Services Act, which sets duties for the digital services providers, namely against illegal content". Anacom will be the oversight body".