A one-day sub-forum for this year’s annual China Cybersecurity Week has been hosted in Macau, during which Judiciary Police (PJ) Director Sit Chong Meng pledged the Macau government’s commitment to improving compliance guidelines for AI security and data security, as well as enhancing the cybersecurity resilience of Macau’s civil society.
The 2026 China Cybersecurity Week was held across the country between Monday last week and yesterday. Main activities, including the opening ceremony on Monday last week, were held in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. This year’s event was themed “Cybersecurity for the People, Cybersecurity by the People – Safeguarding the Intelligent Era”.
The sub-forum in Macau, which was open to the media, held at the Macao Science Centre (MSC) on Friday, was attended by about 400 people, including officials, experts, and industry representatives in the cybersecurity field from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Macau.
The sub-forum was organised by the local government’s Cybersecurity Incident Alert and Response Centre – which comprises officials from the Judiciary Police, the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP), and the Post and Telecommunications Bureau (CTT).
In his speech, Sit said that the world is currently experiencing a massive wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, where emerging technologies such as AI, big data, and cloud computing are fully penetrating all socioeconomic areas. While providing powerful momentum for governance innovation, industrial upgrading, and public services, they also give rise to new security challenges like data security, privacy protection, and technology misuse, Sit said.
The rapid development of AI technology has rendered criminal tactics increasingly intelligent and automated, Sit said, adding that the speed of hacker intrusions is unprecedented, their stealthiness has increased significantly, new fraudulent schemes are more deceptive, and the damage caused by data theft and cyberattacks has escalated substantially.
Sit said that these risks threaten not only social order and the public interest in Macau, but also pose a direct threat to national security.
Sit said that faced with a severe cybersecurity landscape and emerging risks, the operators of the city’s various major facilities – while developing and applying emerging technologies for their operations – must draw up regulations on security governance, with the aim of guiding technology towards good ends and ensuring that technological development always benefits civil society.
Sit pointed out that Macau’s 3rd Five-Year Plan outlines comprehensive planning for safeguarding cybersecurity across various aspects such as system improvements, capacity building, and talent cultivation. Sit said that the local government will place a strong emphasis on improving compliance guidelines for cutting-edge fields such as AI security and data security, strengthening the development of Macau’s cybersecurity talent system, and systematically enhancing the cybersecurity resilience of Macau’s civil society.
The Macau government released the final version of the 3rd Five-Year Plan last month.
Sit also underlined that the Cybersecurity Incident Alert and Response Centre will continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation in cybersecurity with its counterparts in Guangdong and Hong Kong. Guided by the regional strategic initiative to build a digital Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), the centre will adopt a holistic and systematic mindset to jointly safeguard the GBA’s cybersecurity defences, constructing a solid, reliable security foundation to empower industrial transformation and upgrades through digital intelligence and foster new quality productive forces in the digital economy.
Macau’s Cybersecurity Law was enacted in 2019. According to the law, Macau’s cybersecurity system comprises three parts: (1) the Cybersecurity Commission, (2) the Cybersecurity Incident Alert and Response Centre, and (3) various government entities supervising the various operators of the city’s “critical infrastructure” – officially known as Cybersecurity Supervisory Entities.
The Cybersecurity Commission, headed by the Chief Executive, is tasked with strategic planning and decision-making for Macau’s cybersecurity while overseeing the operations of the Cybersecurity Incident Alert and Response Centre and the Cybersecurity Supervisory Entities.
According to the Cybersecurity Law, “critical infrastructure” refers to the assets, information networks, and computer systems important to the normal functioning of civil society whose disruption, destruction, data leakage, suspension of operation, or significant decrease in operational performance is likely to cause serious harm to public well-being, public safety, public order, or other important matters of public interest.
Judiciary Police (PJ) Director Sit Chong Meng addresses Friday’s sub-forum at the Macao Science Centre (MSC) for the 2026 China Cybersecurity Week. – Photo: PJ
