With More Teeth

“Thanks to the increasing number of cyber crimes that were getting reported

in the media, the Government has finally decided to make changes in its laws”,

told my friend, a very senior IT professional, after the Union Cabinet approved

the introduction of an Amendment Bill to the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Like many in the industry, he has been strongly advocating that the legal system

of India is far behind the technology, and will begin proving to be a deterrent

for Indian users, especially in the business, because their dependence on IT was

going up dramatically.

Enacted in 2000, with the objective of helping e-commerce, e-governance, the

Information Technology Act was supposed to be a legal framework for transactions

to be carried out using IT and Internet technologies of that time. However,

rising number of crimes relating to video voyeurism, identity theft, e-commerce

frauds, frauds on online auction sites, offensive emails, data theft, and

privacy, was putting the laws under increasing pressure, both domestically as

well as in the international media.

On a recent trip to Europe, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured British

investors that India will have excellent standards for information protection.

This came in the wake of a UK-based channel's allegations about data theft

from Indian call centers.

The penalties are bigger and harsher. Any company found leaking sensitive

information will be liable to pay damages of up to Rs 5 crore to the affected

party, says one amendment, for instance. A person involved in hacking of

computers will be liable for punishment of up to two years or fine of up to Rs 5

lakh or both. Similarly, publication of sexually explicit material through

computers or any other communication instrument will result in imprisonment of

up to five years and a fine of Rs 10 lakh. Repeated violations will result in

imprisonment of up to seven years and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh.

The good thing is that these amendments are in line with the recommendations

made by United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, said to be a model

law on electronic signature. According to PR Dasmunsi, “An added benefit will

be that frequent legislative changes will not be needed each time a new and

equally effective technology is evolved.” Experts are waiting for more details

before they comment on this aspect.

Clearly, the Act has been amended to give more teeth to the enforcement

agencies. The strength of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal is being increased from

just a single member to three. Now, one needs to watch whether this will lead to

better handling of cyber crime by enforcement authorities, because many industry

members have in the past expressed that whatever laws that are there, are not

getting implemented.

While all amendments to the IT Act, 2000 will be presented in the forthcoming

Winter session of Parliament, its good news for the CIOs who can breathe a

little easy now, and the industry which gets to sell more security and data

storage solutions. And industry associations like Nasscom must now take faster

measures to help educate law enforcement agencies, a job that it has taken upon

itself. This is important not just for better implementation, but also to reduce

misuse of the amended laws.

As the laws are being amended, one hopes that corporates and their CIOs are

more stringent and responsible with their data security issues. Nobody wants a

repeat of the Baazi.com case, where the CEO was behind bars for no fault of his.

The amendments might look to be addressing only the BPO and call center

industry, but actually everybody is likely to benefit from this.

The author is Group Editor of Dataquest. ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in