KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 — A new law being drafted to regulate computing practitioners under a statutory board has set off alarm bells among IT professionals who say mandatory registration and certification by the Board of Computing Professionals will hurt the billion-ringgit industry.
The main fear appears to be that those who are not registered with this new board would not be allowed to practise programming, software engineering or apply for government tenders regardless of their years of experience or other qualifications.
The worse-case scenario feared by some would be that the board could control who would be registered and if government tenders required the use of certified professionals, the pool of eligible professionals would shrink.
A draft of what appears to be the proposed Computing Professionals Bill that appeared on the Internet states that unregistered IT professionals will not be allowed to “practice, carry on business or take up employment which requires him to carry out or perform the services of a Registered Computing Professional.”
They will also not “be entitled to recover in any court any fee, charge, remuneration or other form of consideration for any professional technology services rendered.”
As far as can be ascertained, no country in the world has yet to enact a law to require IT professionals to be registered with a board before being able to practise.
Most countries however do require lawyers and doctors to be registered with a professional body before being allowed to practise.
The goal of the proposed Malaysian law appears to be aimed at bringing the IT profession to higher levels of accountability, especially in light of numerous large-scale IT projects that fail or experience cost overruns.
Most IT professionals who spoke to The Malaysian Insider today said there was no need to register computing practitioners and the draft Bill also prevents them from using self-taught skills.
“IT is a very fluid and flexible industry and, unlike doctors or engineers, does not endanger lives,” said Vijandren Ramadass, founder of online community Lowyat.net.
Enterprise systems consultant N. Kavilan also said too much power was given to the board to certify computing professionals.
“There is no mention of self-taught skills. So I can only practise what I learnt in school or what my employers certify. What about freelancers or if I start my own business?” he said.
Clause 12 (2) of the draft states that “there shall be indicated against the name of each Registered Computing Practitioner... a record of disciplines or specialisations on computing obtained or acquired by such personnel through academic qualification or training including on-the-job training or skill or specialist or professional certifications.”
“If you code in languages you weren’t taught in, that’s illegal. Universities these days don’t teach their students any of the modern programming languages that developers use,” social media and digital forensics analyst Harinder Singh said.
Based on the purported draft, registration as a professional with the board would entail passing board examinations, having professional experience and settlement of registration fees.
IT industry observers took to online platforms yesterday and today to pan the proposed Bill, claiming that innovations like Facebook would not have happened had the US formed a similar computing professional board.
Others said that it appeared to have a hidden agenda, which was to generate more licensing fees and business for certification providers.
Aaron Tan Dani, chairman of the International Association of Software Architects, said that a board of computing professionals was good but it should only be for those involved in critical functions such as IT architects and project managers for large-scale projects where the risks due to failure was high.
“It is good but it must be based on industry needs,” said Dani. “It should be registering only those in critical functions and not try to register everybody. Certification should also be based on competency and skill.”
The Ministry of Science Innovation and Technology is having an open day to get public feedback over the proposed new law at the ministry in Putrajaya next Tuesday starting at 9.30am.
A Youtube video featuring a parody of the movie “Downfall” entitled “Hitler angry towards Malaysian Computing Bill 2011”, that was made to highlight the potential cons of the Bill, noted the possibility that IT professionals in Malaysia may flee to other countries if they are forced to register before being able to practice.
“I don’t have certs too, let’s work in Singapore,” said one of the characters in the video, which highlights the danger that the new law could drive away talent.
“Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder) can’t be in here like us because he has no certs,” said “Hitler” in the parody. “Even I don’t have certs. Does that mean I can’t run the business? 20 years in the industry then treated like this. My son who programmed my iPad app has to go get a cert.”
It is unclear how many people the law will affect as “the definition is so vague, it could even include bloggers, e-commerce entrepreneurs or even anyone with a Facebook page,” said Vijandren.
It defines “computing” as a “goal-oriented activity to plan, architect, design, create, develop, implement, use and manage information technology or information technology systems.”
Multimedia Super Corridor-status companies alone accounted for RM17.5 billion in revenue in 2007 and employed nearly 70,000 workers.
However, system administrator and business intelligence specialist Brian Ritchie said that the unspoken fear was that “the government is building a hacker database and can profile and identify all specialists.”
“But if you got nothing to hide, it shouldn’t be an issue. It could actually open up a lot of new possibilities such as focus groups and advisory boards to support the industry,” he said.
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