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"Och", the first microcomputer assembled and put into operation in Mongolia, turned 38 today / May 17, 2022 /. The computer was first tested on May 17, 1984, by members of the Central Science and Technology Council of the Central Statistics Office. It has been 38 years since the official letter No. 4/5 “Application” was delivered to the State Committee for Science and Technology, which was signed by Luvsandorj, Chairman of the General Counsel. In the Application, it said that “After studying the optimal proposal material called “Och”, a micro-computing electronic machine developed by the engineers of the Computing Center of the Department O.Batsukh, G.Oyunbayar and D.Tolya. Dashtseren, Myagmarsuren, L.Gantulga, a teacher at the Young Technicians' Palace, and A.Gantumur, an engineer at the UAMD Institute, it is proposed to discuss it with the board of the State Committee for Science and Technology, approve it and issue a certificate to its creators. Please study the relevant materials and make the appropriate decision.” Since then, there is a possibility of Flame and Fire from “Och”, but the ignition is low. Congratulations on the 38th anniversary of the creation of "Och" to the families, relatives and friends of our friends who went to heaven and wish them all the best! The microcomputer "Och" used a small TV called "Youth" instead of a display, and instead of an HDD used a recording player called "Electronics" and a magnetic cassette. The base of the chips was sawn by IBM mainframe connectors. Power supply not saved. The Och computer is now housed in the Museum of National Information Technology Park. For 38 years, after the commissioning of Och, O. Batsukh, who went to Moscow to study for a postgraduate degree and received a doctorate, and Myagmarsuren, a designer-teacher at Young Technicians' Palace and later became a leading car paint service provider, have gone to heaven. Rest in peace. Dashtseren, a former engineer of the Ministry of Defense, risked his life to participate in the first hunger strike in 1990 to start democracy in order to computerize the country, and is now a businessman. Engineer D. Tolya and author himself went to the United States on a green card after assembling and commissioning Mongolia's first supercomputer, Bit HPC, in 2006. He is now a local citizen and works for a branch of Siemens. Engineer A.Gantumur, who provided many small capacitors and elements and supported them with tools, established “Khet Motors” LLC to diagnose and repair motors and cars. L. Gantulga, a handicraft teacher, still works in the education sector and has many students. We pay tribute to the memory of Sh. Sodnomdarjaa, the former head of the Young Technicians' Palace, who approved the installation of this computer! I am grateful to D.Tsetsegmaa, a teacher who used her electronics laboratory 24/7 for 2 months. Good health to the Computing Center engineers who replaced our work while working at Young Technicians' Palace! We are also grateful to Sister Donjoo and Brother Maam, the engineers and designers of the Computing Center, who provided us with an eraser and a programmer to type the system on the regular memory chip 2716. WHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF OCH? It was small in size, inexpensive (~ USD500), relatively high in capacity * (intel8080), large in RAM * (16KB), easy to use, but very reliable. The comparative computer was a 22-seat MERA-100 (USD15000) mini-computer installed in 1983 in the provincial capital, the Statistical Office of three cities, and the Computing Center. Mainframe Minsk-32 took 90 sq m, IBM360 took 110 sq m spaces. However, the MERA-100 only allowed assembly language, and in addition to the "Och" assembler, it was a compact desktop computer with BASIC, which did not require high user programming skills. One problem was that the chips used to build the Och were mostly from Intel, so they weren't in our store, not even in the Soviet Union, Germany or Poland. It was on the black market in Hungary and Poland. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a number of countries, including the United States, imposed the sanctions on the Soviet Union, including the People's Republic of Mongolia until 1989. Och's chips and parts were collected for three years through the purchase of spare parts from German and Hungarian equipment, the exchange of goods with Polish experts, and the secret purchase. Although Och won a bronze medal at the biennial Innovation-84 exhibition, the SOCOM representative in Mongolia did not speak out. At the time, Sanction’s envoy was the Secretary of the Embassy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In the processor box of the "Och", a plate with serial data chip 8251 was assembled to connect the modem and transmit data over the telephone line, and a 25-foot connector was screwed on the outside. DID THE CREATORS 'GOALS COME TRUE? Like the IBM PC and Apple II, which were just being introduced at the time, the Och was designed to be used by every professional, as a home computer, and to connect to a network. To date, PCs have not reached every household in Mongolia, but there are many assemblers, wholesale suppliers, and Och has reached the level of Flame. In terms of network, PCs in central urban areas and enterprises are connected to fiber-optic networks, but fixed data services are very inadequate in suburban ger areas. Although mobile data services have reached Ulaanbaatar's ger districts, aimags, soum centers, and settlements, they have reached only a small part of herder cities and pastures, it is too small number for a neighboring country of China, the world's largest producer of telecommunications and electronics. D.Enkhbat (a candidate for President of Mongolia last year), a programmer who worked with us at the Computing Center, took the initiative to connect Mongolia to the Internet in 1996 at his own expense. Today, more than 30,000 km of fiber-optic cables with a capacity of hundreds of terabit/s have been laid in rural areas, and thousands of stations capable of providing wireless data services at tens of hundreds of mbps have been installed. More than 80% of the land is inaccessible to data services, and rural herders have access to winter camps, summer camps and pastures, although they have high-capacity processors, multiple gigabytes of memory, smart devices with 3G / 4G / 5G modems, and no internet. What is the main cause? Our fiber optic tariffs are very high, for example, 1Mbit/s from UB to the United States is ₮ 16,000 (Gemnet LLC), and from UB to aimags and soums, and from Central Post Office to UB ger districts is ₮ 80,000 (ICN SOE). In rural areas of Latvia, Estonia and Kazakhstan, as well as in the United States, Japan and Germany, the monthly tariff per 1 mb/s is less than $ 1. In terms of PC penetration, the goal of "Och" was close to being achieved, and with the help of smart devices, it became "Fire". As for the data transmission network, high-performance transmission and termination devices and stations were installed along the settlements and roads in Mongolia. However, even 1% of the fiber-optic capacity of soums and settlements is not used, while the service tariffs for rural residents are high but service is low. In herders' pastures and winter camps, even though they have smart devices, they do not receive landline or cellular signals, or “fire” lacks the fuel. In 1984, the sanction was the main obstacle to the mass production of computers, but today the Parliament is playing the role of sanction, which does not change the provisions of the law that set very high tariffs for local transmission. Today's “New Och seems to be that the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications and the Government will develop a well-founded proposal and submit it to the Parliament. Enjoy it as a Flame and then as a Fire, it will enhance the development of Mongolia and good luck! Prepared by: G.Oyunbayar, Bulgan, Teshig, Erin bag

"Zuunii Medee" invites industry leaders and innovators to its "Leaderships Forum" to discuss Mongolia's development opportunities and share their interesting solutions and ideas with its readers. This time, we invited Kh. Surenkhorol, Director of the Legal Division of the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications, to discuss the Law on the Personal Data Protection, which came into force on the 1st of this month. IT BECAME DIFFICULT TO REGULATE PUBLIC RELATIONS BY LAW ON INDIVIDUAL SECRECY The Law on Individual Secrecy was adopted in 1995. It became almost 30 years since the adoption. It was a law that suited the social, economic and legal relations of that time, but now we can see how society is changing and how electronic communication is affecting our lives. In other words, the law of 30 years ago makes it difficult to regulate every relationship related to personal secrecy. Statistics show that in the last five years, there have been 2-5 crimes of disclosure of personal secrets. This indicates that the relationship governed by the Law on Individual Secrecy is limited. It also classifies four types of personal information such as health, family, property, and correspondence information as confidential, and according to the regulations the owners protect confidentiality of information themselves. There are many types of information that can be used to identify an individual. For example, individual's ethnicity, religion, beliefs, genetic and biometric information, whether or not they are serving a sentence, sexual and gender orientation, expression, and sexuality etc., There are many cases where personal information is collected, processed, and used for any purpose, especially on social media, without any specific control or permission. According to international standards, the collection of personal information requires the consent of the owner of the information, except as required by law. Due to these circumstances, there was a need to revise the Law on Individual Secrecy, and the Law on the Protection of Personal Data was developed and approved by the State Great Hural. THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW IS TO PROTECT ALL INFORMATION THAT CAN DETERMINE THE INDIVIDUAL Brief Info: Education ♦ 2006 School of Law, National University of Mongolia ♦ In 2016, she received a master's degree in law from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Work experience: ♦ From 2007 to 2022, she worked as a specialist, senior specialist and expert in the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs. ♦ Since March 2022, she has been working as the Director of the Legal Division at the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications. During the drafting process, the Working Group conducted a number of studies on how personal secrecy is regulated and protected in other countries, and received many comments from citizens, legal entities, and researchers. The basic provisions of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data are based on the European Union General Protection Regulation. Some specific regulations of Estonia, Slovenia, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Israel which can be implemented in our country have been taken into account in drafting the law. The Law on the Protection of Personal Data regulates a number of relationships. Information which identifies the individual has been expanded. While the Law on Individual Secrecy protects four types of personal secrets, sensitive information such as a person's last name, first name, date of birth, whether he or she is serving a sentence, sexual and gender orientation, expression, and sexuality, genetic and biometric information is protected under the new Law. In particular, the purpose of this law is to protect all information that may identify an individual. The collection, processing and use of personal information must be approved by the owner of the information, except as required by law. This law guarantees the rights of the owner of the information and obliges the person responsible for the information. For example, the owner of the information has the right to give or refuse permission, to know, demand and comment on the purpose for which the information is collected. On the other hand, the information respondent is responsible for obtaining permission, collecting, processing and using the information, explaining the grounds for issuing the information, and providing information security. One of the specific regulations of the law is the placement of audio, video and audio-visual recording devices. The device may be located in the entrance and exit areas of public housing and in common areas to protect the safety of residents, to ensure the integrity of common property, to protect human and information security in the workplace, and to ensure the integrity of organizational property. But, in places where the person's right to liberty and security is clearly infringed, video cameras will not be installed facing the bathroom, VIP room, hospital room or resident's door. EMPHASIZED LEGAL ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS The law clearly states the law enforcement agencies. By law, one member of the National Human Rights Commission is responsible for protecting the personal information of the individuals. There is also a special unit to carry out this function. This unit will be required to employ legal and information technology professionals. The Commission shall monitor the implementation of the law, receive and resolve complaints related to the collection, processing and use of information by the respondent, and provide recommendations and demands. Other government organizations also play an important role in enforcing the law. The Ministry of Digital Development and Communications is responsible for publicity of the implementation of legislation, developing and approving universally applicable regulations, and responding to breaches of information security. Our Ministry is cooperating with the National Human Rights Commission on the regulations to be approved under this law. A total of three regulations will be approved under the law. Although the law sets out the responsibilities of the government organizations to ensure implementation, every organization, regardless of whether it is a public or private sector, must be aware of its responsibility to protect personal information as a respondent. On the other hand, it is important to monitor and enforce the law step by step, as the law gives every citizen the right to monitor whether his or her information is being used with permission, except in cases provided by law. NO PERMISSION IS REQUIRED TO USE SOME INFORMATION FOR JOURNALISM PURPOSES The Law on the Protection of Personal Data provides for the collection, processing and use of personal information for journalism purposes. The consent of the owner of the information is not required for the collection, processing or use of information other than health, correspondence, genetic and biometric information, sexual and gender orientation, expression and sexual information for the protection of journalism or public interests. Journalism is an organization with a responsible editorial staff that disseminates news and information to protect the public interest. Dissemination of personal information, not for journalism purposes, requires the consent of the owner of the information. Any person or entity who violates the law, collects, processes and uses personal information shall be liable in accordance with the Criminal Law and the Law on Violations. These laws have been amended in accordance with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data. NOTIFICATION WILL BE PROVIDED IN THE CASE OF USING THE INFORMATION The law regulates that public and private organizations and individuals must notify the owner of the information as a person responsible for the use or transmission of sensitive information. Of course, the form of notification can be various. For example, notifications can be delivered via text messages, personal emails, and the creation of a specific system. In the event that information is transferred from a government organization connected to the XYP system, the respondent will notify the owner that to which organization the information was transferred. The private sector, on the other hand, is responsible for deciding how to deliver the notification. In general, it is important for citizens to monitor the unauthorized use of personal information. FIVE PACKAGE LAWS CAME IN THE FORCE The State Great Hural (Parliament) adopted the Law on Public Information Transparency, the Law on Electronic Signatures, the Law on Cyber Security, and the Law on Virtual Property Providers along with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data. With the exception of the Law on Virtual Property Service Providers, four other laws came into force on 1st May. The Law on Public Information Transparency generally regulates how government organizations use the information they collect for citizens and legal entities, how they process and disclose open data to the public, and what systems they use to exchange information. The law also regulates the notification must be delivered to the owner when the information collected by the government is exchanged between the government organizations. The Law on Electronic Signatures is a law that allows you to receive any services using electronic signatures, to conclude contracts and agreements regardless of time and place, and to evaluate documents signed with electronic signatures as evidence. One of the specific provisions of this law is that every citizen of Mongolia over the age of 16 can be issued an electronic signature free of charge by the State Registration Authority. With the help of electronic signatures, you can identify yourself from anywhere in the world and get certain services. This will solve the problem that Mongolians living abroad could not access E-Mongolia. Citizens living abroad do not have a bank account or mobile phone number registered in Mongolia, which makes it difficult for them to obtain certain government services, inquiries, certificates, and order documents. The Law on Cyber Security is inseparable with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data. Regulations are important to ensure the security of personal information gathered in public and private organizations. Doljinjav Source: “Zuunii medee” newspaper