Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008

Synopsis

By

Mr. Amit Kumar Singh

Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008

The presentation will deal with the efficacy of IT Act to protect the privacy in cyberspace. The word privacy may have different meanings in different perspective in different scenario. The word privacy has been derived from the Latin word “privatus which mean separate from rest”. It can be define as capability of an individual or group secludes themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. Privacy can be understood as a right of an individual to decide who can access the information, when they can access the information, what information they can access.

Privacy is recognized at international level as a dimension of Human Rights:

 Privacy of person

 Privacy of personal behaviour

 Privacy of personal communication

 Privacy of personal data.

In contemporary world computers are inextricable part of our lives and so is our dependence on them.  As our lives get more dependent and exposed to technology our privacy is as vulnerable as technology itself, just some data at mercy of someone skilled enough to exploit the information.

Every day we update our ‘status’ on ‘social media’,  send personal mails, shop, fill forms with all details and what not…All this makes us bare it all on a platform which has vulnerabilities and is not very secure. Aggravating the problem further this ‘data’ is not restricted to some physical place and can be ‘accessed’ from anywhere in the world (only considerable limit being requisite permission and skill of searching hands ). This data may be vital to us with a potential of causing much harm and damage when exposed in the public domain.

Cyber space is fluid and is boundary less. Conventional paradigms of law do not appear to be very valid and effective in such a virtual world. We know that the concept of judicial jurisdiction of a court emanates from the ‘sovereignty theory’ and ‘territorial theory’ of state. Under these classic formulations each state is supreme and has supreme authority within its geographical limits. Conception of ‘physical presence’ doesn’t exist in virtual world, large volumes of information can be stored in very small devices which are highly portable and can replicate such data many times in a matter of seconds and the data can be erased without leaving any trace.

Cyberspace is a new development and conventional laws cannot be applied in erstwhile ways. There are limits of conventional laws and ways in which they were applied but this medium and tool has a degree of innovation which is beyond conventionality, nevertheless cyberspace is increasingly encapsulating us and need to be properly dealt by law for reasons of indispensability.

Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 has given some teeth to law enforcement agencies by revamping Information Technology Act, 2000 by introducing some new provisions. This is an attempt to discover whether the act is potent enough along with existing laws to tackle the problems of cyberspace (which is highly technical and is constantly evolving) and protect the privacy of netizen from prying eyes and administer justice.