The end of 2004 in the Indian Cyber regulatory Space was
marked by the infamous Bazee.com issue where the CEO of a US Owned Indian
Internet Auction Portal was arrested for having facilitated auction of an
objectionable video clipping.
The arrest
of Avnish Bajaj jolted the IT industry which had all along considered IT law
as a joke. The ensuing debate raised several legal and industrial issues with a
demand for review of the IT Law itself.
The controversy also highlighted the need for voluntary Cyber law Compliance programme required to be followed by the
industry for which "CyLawCom" education
and consultancy programme of Naavi was set up.
Year 2004 was also significant for the birth of the
Cyber Society of India which
has the potential to take the Cyber Law Literacy Mission started by
Cyber Law College and
Naavi.org to higher levels.
Yet another significant aspect of 2004 was the use of Naavi's
Cyber Evidence Archival Center in the
first case
under ITA-2000 to reach conviction stage.
Year 2004 also saw another small but satisfying achievement
for Naavi with the production of a
book on Cyber
Crimes in a regional language (Kannada). This will shortly be appearing in
print both in Kannada and Tamil (hope fully other languages also) and tries to
fulfill one of the long felt needs of the Indian Market to take Cyber Law
Awareness to the masses.
In the domain of Naavi's activities, the year marked the
beginning of a programme for
Creating Young Responsible Netizens through an education plan for High
School Students to be implemented in the coming year which could be one of the
significant aspects of the coming year.
Conducting "CyLawCom Education seminars"
for Industries, Implementing "CyLawCom" programmes in select industries and in
e-Governance are the other programmes which Naavi will focus in 2005.
Creation
of "CyLawCom Examiners" with the required "Techno Legal Cyber Security Skills"
is another aspect of Naavi's activity that may gain momentum in 2005. There are
a few Cyber Law Related services of Naavi which are yet to see the light of the
day and 2005 will be the year in which some progress may be made in this
direction.
In the general Cyber Regulatory front in India the much awaited Patent Law Amendment was undertaken to
fulfill the Indian commitment to WTO towards the fag end of the year. While the impact of this on the
pharmaceutical industry and the benefits that will indirectly flow to the
Textile industry have been well recognized, the negative impact of the Patent
Regime on the E-Biz sector in India is yet to be fully appreciated. The IPR
regime in Cyber World may be soon hitting the Indian IT and E-Biz industry like
a silent killer Tsunami. We need to watch out for the developments.
Throughout most of 2004 the Indian BPO industry was kept under the threat
from the US concerns of job loss. With the culmination of the US election, the
major threat of elimination of Indian BPOs serving US through legislation has
somewhat receded.
The year 2004 saw some developments in the Cyber Forensic
Area. CDAC, Trivandrum released its Cyber Forensic software "Cyber Check"
and some of the Police departments in India started new Cyber Crime Cells to
tackle the special requirements of investigations of Cyber Crimes. Towards the
end of the year the need to equip these centers with "Mobile Forensics" was also
felt and some efforts are now on in Chennai to set up a Cyber Forensic lab.
One of the areas of discussion that emerged during the year
was the need for new laws of Data Protection and introduction of anti spam laws
in India on the lines of the CANSpam Act. The Ministry of Communication and
Information Technology has undertaken an exercise to draft some changes in the
ITA-2000 to accommodate these demands and this will be one of the areas of
discussion that will be taken up in Naavi.org.
One of the significant developments in the Indian Cyber
Regulatory world in India was the announcement of the new Dot In domain name
policy. Expected to be under implementation from January 1st, 2005, this would open up
generic name registrations under dot in domain extension. This is also likely to
make Naavi's Verify4lookalikes
service more relevant to India domain name owners.
Though the year began just after the conclusion of the
inaugural session of WSIS, no
specific project was undertaken in India exclusively to meet the directive
principles of WSIS. The Government also did not take up any support programme
for any of the private initiatives such as what Cyber Law College has been doing
to further the cause of WSIS. It is only towards the end of the year that some
thoughts started emerging on WSIS implementation and hopefully it will gain
momentum in 2005, the year in which the next summit is scheduled in Tunisia.
The repealment of POTA the exclusive legislation to counter
Terrorism in India and introduction of a new legislation in the form of Unlawful
Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) did not take care of the Cyber Space
requirements. The new law failed to provide any protection against Cyber
Terrorism.
The introduction of Cheque Truncation in India after two
years of legislatory change (to be operative in early 2005) was another
significant change in the regulatory environment in Cyber Banking.
In October, Karnataka Government came up with a notification
introducing regulation for Cyber Cafes which could open a new wave of Cyber Law
Extensions from the States.
Chennai stole a march over others in Cyber Crime Management
by obtaining the Country's
first
conviction under Section 67 of ITA-2000 in which the accused was sentenced
to a total of 5 years imprisonment.
The final phase of the year was marked by a series of Mobile
Crimes including the
Delhi
Public School case and Trisha Video case. This has introduced a new
"Mobile
Forensics" challenge to the country.
Year 2004 has been another significant year in the
development of Cyber Regulations in India. Having completed four years of
regulation, we are now moving towards the fifth year of regulatory environment.
Yet, it is only the the Section 67 of ITA-2000, that has made some news.
Several frauds in the Electronic banking and Corporate Accounting scenario are
going unrecognized due to inadequate Techno Legal security systems. Digital
Signatures are still a rarity and few in the Corporate sector have started using
Digital Signatures for communication or authentication. Cyber Law Compliance is
still a far cry both in Private sector as well as in e-Governance. Perhaps only
a beginning has been made in adapting ourselves to the regulatory Cyber
space......There are miles to go before we can try to catch a nap.
Naavi
January 1, 2005
Related Articles:
Please refer to the list of archived articles for detailed
information on individual developments.
