CYBER LAWS

India is speeding up the web ladder to touch yet another milestone this year - flaunting the 2nd largest internet user base of a stout 560 million users. Predictions stumble up to a minimum of 600 million users in the near future.

Though cyber security is advancing every day, hackers are also constantly upping their game and finding ways to break into new systems. This reinforces the need not only for better cyber security systems but robust cyber laws as well.

In India, cyber laws are contained in the Information Technology Act, 2000 which came into force on October 17, 2000. The main purpose of the Act is to provide legal recognition to electronic commerce and to facilitate filing of electronic records with the Government. The Act swiftly amended the traditionally-set Indian Penal Code 1860, the Bankers' Books Evidence Act 1891, the Indian Evidence Act 1872, and the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934. These amends aimed to tone up all electronic transactions/communications bringing them under the radar by granting strict legal recognition.

One significant step towards this was accepting digital signatures as legal authentication. This had far broader ambitions covering other tech-driven authentication forms like bio-metrics. Further, the popularity of electronic fund transfers and electronic data storage attested to the need and success of the futuristic vision behind the IT Act.

Cyberlaw is important because it touches almost all aspects of transactions and activities on and concerning the Internet, the World Wide Web and Cyberspace. Initially it may seem that Cyberlaws is a very technical field and that it does not have any bearing to most activities in Cyberspace. But the actual truth is that nothing could be further than the truth. Whether we realize it or not, every action and every reaction in Cyberspace has some legal and Cyber legal perspectives.

Technology is always a double-edged sword and can be used for both the purposes good and bad. Steganography, Trojan Horse, Scavenging (and even Dos or DDos) are all technologies and per se not crimes, but falling into the wrong hands with an illicit intent who are out to exploit them or misuse them, they come into the array of cyber-crime and become punishable offences.