Legislations on cyber crimes
In this developing era, the use of internet is paced up to a great extent and with this increase in its use, offenses involving the IT Sector have also increased substantially. After 1991 when the new economic policy was introduced by the government, the IT Sector flourished and many people were engaged and employed. This growth, though, solved a number of issues pertaining to employment and foreign exchange but since then, more and more cases are reported by the people which especially include E-mail frauds, wrongful transactions, hacking of the accounts etc.
In order to overcome these problems, it was essential to establish a legal framework which can deal with such situations. The beginning of this framework can be spotted in the year 2000 when the Information Technology Act was introduced for the first time although, specific information as to what is meant by cyber crimes was not mentioned within.
The IT Act includes the rules and regulations of the electronic governance, establishment of a board of securities with certain powers and functions to perform, categorization of the offenses covered under the ambit of cybercrimes, authorization of certain bodies etc. The IT Act, 2000 as amended in 2008 acts as the most important statute in dealing with cybercrimes in India.
Trends in increasing cyber crimes
The laws that currently run the judicial system were made more than a century ago and the development of the cyber crimes have made these laws ineffective in certain ways. The motive of the then made laws was to curb with the conventional issues and not with the recently developed special problems like the cyber-crimes and this had led to a significant increase in the rate of these crimes.
Also, because of the less developed technology on the official front, the offenders are largely unreachable showcasing the incapability of the current laws. Lack of skilled personnel and scarcity of trainings in this field is also an important issue.
The terrorist organizations nowadays try to use different hacking techniques in order to access confidential data of the governmental organizations and execute their plans. Such acts are also covered under the ambit of cyber-crimes and increase the quantum of these offenses.
Need of efficient cyber laws
From the beginning of the 21st century, IT Act has been the only Act which protects an individual or an organization from these types of crimes and lays down the punishments for the same. Sufficiency of laws can be guaranteed on the basis that the associated crimes are reduced after the enactment of the laws but this cannot be observed in this case. The rate of cyber-crimes has been increased exponentially in the past 20 years.
The field of digital forensics which can be considered as an important part of the cyber investigations has been unexplored in India. Secondly, the concerned officers must be informed that the materials that are gathered while investigation of cyber crimes is sensitive in nature and must be handled carefully.
Understanding the Gresham’s law
The Gresham’s Law is basically based on the comparisons between two outcomes and how they affect each other. It was used to understand the concept of good money and bad money along with undervalued and overvalued money.
In this context, the Gresham’s Law applies largely in the way that the pre-existing laws were made in accordance with the conditions and situations prevalent in that era. Those laws were in consonance with the needs of the then existing society and hence, it can be said that the need of the current society cannot be fulfilled with those laws i.e., a change is required in those laws.
Cyber crimes have been developed in the recent times and the laws are not sufficient to handle these offenses. Therefore, according to the Gresham’s Law, a law being good for a particular society may not be sufficient in another society and may require a change.
Conclusion
Taking in view the International perspective, the developed nations where the technology reached far earlier than in India, have developed various mechanisms and established various legal prohibitions to control cyber offenses.
In the United States, the organizations and the private entities are frequently informed about the recent technologies that are available in the market to secure data and protect it. The laws have been amended many times to set the safeguard standards.
In UK, there are many statute-based laws in accordance with the cyber security. The regulation institutions were set-up in as early as 1984. In 2010, CLUK (Cyber Laws in United Kingdom) was published containing a detailed infrastructure of privacy and protection as well as the computer related crimes.
In India, the establishment of the IT Act was a major step to control cyber crimes but the sufficiency of laws in this subject matter cannot be guaranteed only by this Act. These laws have to be amended on a regular basis to cope up with the changing trends.
“The views of the authors are personal“
Frequently asked questions
What is meant by Encryption? What is its significance?
Encryption is basically a process to convert a readable material into an unreadable material. It is done in order to maintain privacy and security of the data. This function is used my many companies in order to protect the data of its customers. For e.g. WhatsApp.
What are the Jurisdictional issues in Cyber Crimes.?
The Jurisdictional issues in these cases arises in the cross border cyber-crimes. The general rule is that in a particular case, there can be multiple jurisdictions since the effect of these crimes may occur at multiple places at same time.
How does Surveillance and Interceptions helps in maintaining privacy?
Surveillance basically means to keep a check upon a particular network which is under suspicion whereas interception means to block a network and keep a check upon it. Both these techniques help in maintaining the privacy as well as to check the suspicious elements active in the cyber world.
Reference
http://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-1019-importance-of-cyber-law-in-india.html
http://www.iibf.org.in/documents/Cyber-Laws-chapter-in-Legal-Aspects-Book.pdf
https://indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1999/3/A2000-21.pdf
INTERNET LAW, Text and Materials : By- Chris Reed( 2nd Edition)
