CLASSIFICATION OF CYBER LAW
Cyber Laws relate to the regulations that affect the transactions of individuals in Cyber Space namely the imaginary transaction area that seems to exist when two computers exchange data.
These laws can be divided into four broad categories namely,
- Laws Relating to Digital Contracts
- Laws Relating to Digital Property
- Laws Relating to Digital Rights
- Law of Cyber Crimes
The Law of Digital Contracts
Contracts are the lifeblood of business. They are agreements between two or more parties which can be enforced in a Court of Law.
The ICT Act-2006 has given legal recognition in India for “Electronic Documents” and “Digital Signatures” so that in any context, if a document is to be in written form and signed for it to be legally valid, the document can be rendered as an Electronic Document and “Digitally Signed”.
There are a few documents which are exempted from this recognition and they include documents relating to transfer or sale of immovable properties, wills, power of attorney documents, Trust deeds, promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange.
Excepting these exempted cases therefore, in India, Electronic documents have an universal recognition today.
The “Digital Signature” is an important component of the Contract law and only a system using a standard one way hash algorithm for data integrity check and a standard asymmetric Crypto system using the Private and Public Key combination for encryption is defined as a valid “Digital Signature”.
For issuing the standard key generation systems to the public, the Government is licensing agencies called “Certifying Authorities” who will on application from a member of the public issue a “Digital Certificate” based on certain approved procedures.
The Digital Certificate will contain such details as the name and address of the holder, his e-mail address, a serial number and date of expiry.
Presently Seven agencies have been licensed for this purpose including Mango Teleservices, Flora Telecom, Data Age Ltd., Computer Services Ltd., Bangla Phone Ltd., Dohataech New Media & Bangladesh Bank.
Laws Relating to Digital Property
The Information Technology Act was enacted to give a boost to E-Commerce and hence it focused more on the Digital Contracts and Cyber Crimes. It did not focus on “Digital Property”.
Hence there is no specific law in India other than the extended meaning of regular laws of physical property to address the issues arising out of Digital Property.
For example, “Domain Name” is an important digital property which any website owner possesses. But who owns it and how it can be transferred etc is not covered by Indian law.
This is however coming under the contractual arrangement between the “Domain Name Registrant” and the “Domain Name Registrar”.
Domain Name registrars are those who are authorized for the purpose by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and the law regarding domain names is governed indirectly by the policies of the ICANN.
Presently the law of domain names is closely linked to the “Law of Trade Marks”.
Under normal circumstances, the person who holds a “Trade mark Right” on any name can claim priority to possess a corresponding domain name and even dispossess the earlier registrant of a “Confusingly Similar Domain Name”.
Thus Suzuki Motors can make a claim on the domain name www.marutionline.com or Rediff can make a claim on www.radiff.com , Yahoo can make a claim on www.yahooindia.com and Spielberg can make a claim for www.dreamworkzweb.com.
Yet another important Cyber Property is the “Content” or the actual files containing information.
The “Content” either on a website or within a file confers a “Copyright” to the original author. Such a copyright holder can assign the copyright or license it for a price or allow it to be freely used by the public.
The infringement of the Copyright of an author is covered by the Copyright Act which is otherwise applicable for printed works, films etc.
The Cyber Copyright has some grey areas since a strict definition of Copyright law as applicable to the Meta Society would make “Caching”, “Proxy Server Setting”, “Meta Tags setting”, “Caching by a search engine”, “Hyper linking”, “Framing”, “File Sharing” etc as possible copyright infringements.
Patents on Software and Web utilities are another area where Cyber Properties can be recognized.
These are covered by Patent laws and the holder of a Patent can enforce payment of licensing fees or damages if a Patent system is used by another person without specific authorization.
A problem in the Cyber Patents is that many of the fundamental aspects of technology that are required to keep the Internet going such as “Hyper Linking”, “Framing”, “E Commerce” etc have been claimed by some as “Patented Products” and selectively enforced.
What an observer of Cyber Property laws has to understand is that these laws come under the umbrella of “Intellectual Property Rights” and we in Bangladesh need to do as much to protect our own rights as to stop using some body else’s rights without permission.
Laws Relating to Digital Rights
Every citizen of a Democratic society enjoys certain rights as a member of the society such as “Freedom of Speech” and “Right to Privacy” within a frame work of regulation.
These rights extend to the actions of individuals on Cyber Space.
Law of Cyber Crimes
We have already discussed the essence of different laws of the Cyber World such as the laws of Digital Contracts, Digital Property and Digital Rights.
Basically, any violation of these laws constitute a Crime and the Law of Cyber Crimes is therefore embedded in each of the laws discussed earlier.
The ICT Act, 2006 discusses certain offences that can be called Cyber Crimes.
The DSA Act, 2018 discusses certain offences that can be called Cyber Crimes.
Additionally, any crime defined in the Penal Code, if committed using a Cyber Tool such as a Computer, Website, E-mail or any other Electronic document, can also be classified as a Cyber Crime.
Some of the easily identified Cyber Crimes are as
Hacking or Unauthorized Entry into Information Systems
Virus Introduction
Publishing or Distribution of Obscene Content in Electronic Form
Tampering with Electronic Documents required to be kept under law
Providing False of information for obtaining Digital Certificates.
Causing Denial of Service
Frauds using Electronic Documents
Violation of Copyright, Trademark or Patent rights
Violation of Privacy rights such as Stalking
Defamation through E-mail
Holding out threats through E-mails
Assisting in commission of Crimes.
Non Cooperation with Regulatory authorities etc.