The scope of Cyber Laws in India is set to expand
significantly with the proposed law on Telemedicine. The draft guideline has
been released for public comments as a prelude to further legislation. Just as
naavi.org has been presenting new Indian legislations in Cyber Law area
for public assimilation right from mid 1999 when Information Technology bill
1999 was available, the impact of the Telemedicine laws will also be discussed
in these columns. Public are requested to send in their own views and
participate in these debates so that the regulators would be provided with
useful inputs.
Naavi
December 25, 2002
Developments since ITA-2000
After the passage of the Information Technology Act 2000
(ITA-2000) in May 2000, The Semiconductor Act (Semiconductor Integrated
Circuits Design Act) was passed. Subsequently the ITA-2000 was notified with
rules from October 17, 2000. The draft rules for the Semiconductor Act has
been released but is yet to be notified.
In the meantime the Communication Convergence Bill is
surfacing from time to time in different draft conditions and is presently
with a standing committee of the Parliament. The indications particularly
after the passage of the new Cable Television Network (regulation) Act 2002 is
that the Communication Convergence Bill may not seee the light of the day for
some time.
On the other hand, the Negotiable Instruments Amendment Act
has provided an entry of Cyber Laws to the law of cheques. The Act has been
passed and notification is expected in due course. It is likely to be held up
at this level for some time for the formation of rules which will have to
cross some complicated hurdles.
Unfinished Tasks
While all these developments in new legislations indicate a
lot of activity for Cyber Transaction legislation India, it has to be admitted
that even after two full years after the passage of ITA-2000, the
infrastructure for Digital Signature and Grievance redressal is yet to be
available.
Considering that Digital Signature is the fundamental
building block of Cyber legislation, any new legislation before stabilizing
the Digital signature framework appears to be meaningless.
Even though four Certifying Authorities have since been
licensed by the Controller, NIC and IDRBT is unlikely to provide services to
the general public. Safescrypt is too expensive for the common man and
therefore TCS is the only CA which appears to have a service offer to the
public as of now.
The availability of digital signature certificates is only
the first of the many steps required to introduce "Secure Communication" which
is a prelude to the Telemedicine Laws. We are still not having appropriate
applications that the common people can use to communicate securely. The
e-mail clients such as Outlook express and Netscape messenger appear equipped
to handle the digital signatures but may need extensive testing if the dual
key digital certificates are to be used.
More over the consequences of using a "Dual Key Digital
Certificate" needs to be properly explained to the public as it may involve
"Dilution of Privacy Rights" of the individuals. Unfortunately, the Government
has not taken adequate steps to educate the public on the use of Digital
Signatures on its own nor provided required incentives to private
educationists such as Cyber Law College which have taken up a mission to
propagate Cyber Law Literacy in the country.
It is the considered opinion of Naavi that the market is
yet not ready to start using digital signatures and a lot of ground needs to
be covered in both educating the public as well as the application developers
in this regard. The consequences of inadequate education can be disastrous for
the system.
As an example, it may be stated that there have been many
uses of electronic documents permitted by Government as well as Banking,
Company and Taxation regulators without the legitimacy of legal compliancy.
Such compliancy cannot be achieved until digital
signatures are available to the masses at affordable prices and they are
properly educated to use them.
With such a background, it becomes impossible not to
express a view that perhaps moving onto Telemedicine Law appears to be a step
taken too early for the market. We shall nevertheless look at the
suggested provisions in the following articles.
Naavi
December 26, 2002
Related:
Is This an Indian Version of HIPAA?
Telemedicine
Legislation and Digital Divide
The Essential Impact of the
Telemedicine Legislation
Telemedicine Draft Guidelines Released for Public Comment
Rs 2860
crores Outlay for SMART Governance ?-April 2002
Legal Issues
of Tele-Medicine Practice October 2000
