The University of Malta Academic Staff Association (UMASA) feels that the most appropriate solution to the hacking charges brought against a professor and three students would have been to drop the charges and to review the procedures which put lecturers and learners at risk

Cabinet recently discussed the case in which three students and a lecturer are facing criminal charges of hacking the largest student application in Malta, FreeHour, and said it will be recommending a presidential pardon for the accused. Three students; Michael Debono, Giorgio Grigolo and Luke Bjorn Scerri were recently charged with gaining unauthorised access to the FreeHour app. Their lecturer Mark Joseph Vella was charged as an accomplice for having proofread an email sent to FreeHour by the students. All four have pled not guilty.

UMASA said that it is following the case of Dr Mark Joseph Vella, and has declared its continuing support for Dr Vella.

"While UMASA is keen to see the situation resolved, we feel that resolution through pardon is not the most satisfactory or appropriate route in the circumstances. The pardon is a short-term patch with wider implications suggesting the worrying criminalisation of lecturers in the area."

"The long-running core issue is that there remains a lack of national policies ensuring safety for those conducting cybersecurity teaching, learning and research. While the publishing of a National Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (NCVDP) is a step in the right direction, UMASA urges more sustained attention to the ongoing and systemic problems, rather than the deus ex machina approach taken so far, which has been to see it as an isolated incident that can be summarily dispelled and washed away by the exceptional use of a discretionary power, without addressing the legally complex processes."

The most appropriate solution would have been to drop the charges and to review the procedures which put lecturers and learners at risk, UMASA said.