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Moumita Bakshi

New Delhi , April 2

THE expert committee constituted for an in-depth review of issues relating to the Information Technology Act, 2000, and to consider suitable legislation for data protection (privacy) is understood to favour widening the ambit of computer offences as defined under the legislation, in the wake of rapid technological advancements.

"Computer has been narrowly defined in the Act and hence computer offences too have not been defined in a manner that would reflect technological advancements," sources said.

For instance, Phishing (the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft) was not widely known way back in 1999. "New laws cannot be enacted every two-three years and hence we are looking at making the type of offences more generic to take into account newer forms," the sources added.

The committee was set up after the controversy generated over the arrest of Baazee.com CEO in December 2004 in a case involving the sale of a sexually explicit clip on the auction site. The industry had subsequently called for an amendment in the IT Act.

Making the Baazee.com case as a reference point, the committee is re-looking at ways of balancing the rights of enforcement authorities with the rights of those who could be potentially accused. For instance, in the US, the practice is that an auction site is given an opportunity to take an offending product off its Web site once intimated. If the site fails to take off the offending item within a specified time, action can be taken against it. Therefore, the committee is understood to be looking at factors such as examination of due diligence.

With the IT Act 2000 in its present form covering only digital signatures, the expert committee is in favour of extending it to other forms of e-signatures, such as bio-metrics and fingerprint. "A big shift has been a suggestion to make it technology neutral," the sources added.

On the issue of data protection and data privacy, the committee is believed to be looking at issues such as how data should be collected by entities such as hospitals, telephone companies and banks, and how it should be used.

"It is not as if IT services clients are not satisfied about the data protection in India while offshoring work. The idea is to reassure Indian public that their information and data relating to credit card, mobile phone and even IPO issue application, is safe," the sources pointed out.

The committee, constituted in January this year, is headed by Mr Brijesh Kumar, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, and includes Dr A.K. Chakravarty, Scientist-G, DIT; Mr Kiran Karnik, President of Nasscom; Mr Ajay Chowdhry, Chairman, HCL Infosystems Ltd; Mr Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO, Rediff; and Mr R. Ramraj, CEO, Sify Ltd.

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