Offences under Information Technology Act-General

This post is meant to enlist with a short description of offences dealt with under the Information Technology Act(herein after referred in short as IT Act). The IT Act defines many offences in general and prescribes their punishments. Find the brief description of those offences as follows in simple terms:

1.Concealing, destroying or altering any computer source code used for a computer, computer programme, computer system or network when such code is meant to be maintained by law. The punishment is imprisonment and fine.

2.Dishonestly or Fraudulently doing any of the following things without the permission of the owner or any other person who is in charge of the computer, computer system or computer network:

a)accessing to computer, system, network or resource;

b)downloading, copying, extracting data, computer database;

c)introducing any virus;

d)damaging computer, system, network, data, database, or other programmes in those;

e)disrupting the computer, system or network;

f)denying access to any authorised person;

g)facilitating or helping any person to access the system in contravention of the IT Act;

h)charging the services availed by any person to another person's account by means of tampering with or manipulating his computer;

i)destroying the utility of information in a computer;

j) stealing, concealing, destroying, altering any source code;

The above offences will be punishable if it is done with the intention of making wrongful gain to the doer and wrongful loss to other or to defraud him.

3. Sending offensive information only for causing annoyance, insult etc to other through email, or other computer resource is also an offence.

4. Receiving or retaining stolen computer resource.

5. Theft of identities like electronic signature.

6. Cheating by personation by using computer.

7. Publishing private area of a person without consent.

8. Acts with intention of threatening unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of India through computer medium.

9. Publishing obscene material.

10. Publishing sexually explicit acts.

11. Publishing child sex and abuses.

12. Failure to preserve information required by law.

13. Any person who fails to comply with the orders by law relating to computer resources is committing an offence.

14.Subscriber or intermediary who fails to assist the agency who monitors any computer with the order of law, is also committing an offence.

15. An intermediary who fails to comply with direction issued under law for blocking a a website is also doing a punishable offence.

16. An intermediary who fails to provide technical assistance to investigating agencies is doing an offence.

17. Any person who access a protected system as notified by Government is doing an offence.

18. Intermediaries who fail to provide datas required by legal agencies are doing offence under the IT Act.

19. Misrepresentation for obtaining any license or Electronic Signature Certificate is doing an offence.

20.Intermediaries or service providers acting contrary to the contract and secures personal information of users is doing an offence.

21. Publishing fake Digital IDs making impression that appropriate authority has issued the ID.

22. Creation of fake Electronic Signature Certificates is an offence.

Thus there are various kinds of offences which cover a portion in the wide area of internet. Still there is much to be introduced. Laws are there and the offences are defined and penalties are suggested. Each offence stated above are most specific in their application. For all those details I shall publish other posts. So please pay a visit for my other posts. Thank You.

Internet Freedom of expression and obscenity

In India freedom of expression is guaranteed by lex loci i.e the Constitution of India vide Article 19(1)(a). The freedom is having certain reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2). Obscenity is penalised under Section 292 of Indian Penal Code. It applies to Internet publications also. Likewise, Sections 67, 67A, 67B of the Information Technology Act of India also prescribes penalty for transmission or publication of obscene materials through internet.

Indian Law of Information Technology just like the IPC applies to everyone. Some foreign sites publishing obscene material gives a warning signal before entering the pages. In case you are minor according to the law of your land, you are prohibited from entering the site. But it is only a warning. Everyone irrespective of their age can access the pages by telling that he or she has attained the age of majority. These free usage sites are transmitting sexually explicit content throughout the world which may be viewed by several children also. Indian law, irrespective of the age group of persons viewing the site, has totally barred such sites. In the result any publication which is obscene in electronic form is illegal if it is not in the interest of science, literature, art, learning or other objects of general concern or which is kept or used for bona fide heritage or religious purpose.

There is no express provision in the Indian law of Information Technology for blocking a website on account of any obscene material. But undoubtedly in terms of Constitution of the nation, under Article 19(2), these type of websites can be blocked. In India, CERT-IND shall be the single authority for issue of order for blocking websites.

In United States of America there is a Child Online Protection Act under which the commercial websites need to ensure that obscene materials are not transmitted to minors. Google asked me not to publish any pornographic or adult obscene content in my blog. While enrolling for Adsense also they asked me not to transmit obscene advertisements through my blog. 

However, expressing anything is the liberty of a person. But it should be in conformity with the laws of the nation. What is obscenity and what is not, depends upon each cases and circumstances. In the internet, there is plenty of liberty. Most of the users exploit and misuse it. Many legal things are turned out to be illegal by the conduct of users also, for eg. uploading obscene content to legal websites.

There is a need for specific law or its specific application or a thing like 'doctrine of eclipse' in the case of legal websites which occasionally transmits obscene material by the action of users. There are video sites, chat sites, game sites etc which transmit obscene content uploaded by users. In such cases, the site may not be 

blocked, but the content and in extreme cases and complaints, the user is to be barred. Practical difficulties are still there. I may deal with those in another post.

Now for concluding the post, it can be said that the media of internet is very wide and every rule just as in real world should apply to the electronic-society also.

Where is my private space in the internet?

The term 'net' symbolises a thing which is weaved with many threads thereby interconnecting many ends and forms one common thing. Like wise is the theory of Network. Internet is the meeting of such networks. The whole thing is a family namely World Wide Web. It is a society. We can see all types of people in it just as we see in the actual world. Individuals, groups, societies, companies, communities, forums, etc. Every one shares some information to others while he uses the internet. In a sense there is no privacy in the net. All the time you are being watched. So there are lot of impersonations or fake identities in the net.

But seeking solitude and finding liberty and enjoyment in it is not the only importance of privacy. When we speak of privacy, the term has real meaning in terms of confidentiality of your very important details. Nowadays many a number of shopping sites on the web are using our financial and other information to the betterment of their services to the users. Seeing the growing popularity of the internet, banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions turned into online transaction and many of them are using it very well. Are these informations properly protected. What is anyone liable to store it securely uses it to his ends with malafide intentions. The real problem is not the storage of vital credit infomations, but the wrong use of it.

Nations have many laws for secure data storage and also penal provisions for the violators. Laws will be there; but think twice before you transact online. Dont just give out your vital information to those sites or links which you don't trust. Sometimes it feels that being private is a cause for all the problems. But not for everything. Realise that internet is growing and the crimes related to it are also growing and the laws are still picking up. So be secured in all sense. This is a wide world and you should be more smart to be contained in a private space of your own while dealing with your original details. We have often seen privacy policies of websites. All major websites have privacy policies. What is the function of these privacy policies. They are just laying down a policy relating to your usage of the services of a particular site. The sites collect information related to you automatically while you visit their pages. The policy explains how they use this information.

So take your time to go through policies of sites which you dont trust fully. A knowledge of basic internet practices and laws is worthy. Plus you may need to know the real meaning of the terms and conditions provided in some sites. Thats for now.

You can find other posts going to major aspects relating to laws in cyber world. Thank you.

The Space for Cyber Laws

Cyberworld is a space where there is lot of scope for the law. Every move of a netizen who browses the web is governed by some law. He uses the web because some law helps him. He violates some law either intentionally or not in his process of hopping over sites and links. Civil, Criminal, and many more issues arise in the cyberworld too. So it has developed like any other specialised branch of law.

We love the simple google search. The use of google will be governed by their terms of service. It is their law. These terms of service has backing of laws enacted by States and regulations of UN. Likewise, every other site, portal, blog, providers, intermediaries, etc has their own laws relating to the use, content etc. These terms and conditions should be in conformity to some laws. Generally these laws of different states may be called Cyber Laws.

Nowadays we use the internet for sharing, posting, publishing, downloading, uploading etc. It is a medium. So all those things connected directly and indirectly with a media is present in the internet also. There are issues of privacy, copyright, trademark, patent, license, etc. These are governed by some laws.

Real Estate business has also hit the internet domains. It is a more profitable business than landed property. You are buying your own space in the web world. Is not there any law governing such dealings.

Different states and nations enacts their own laws regarding internet use in their territory. Can it be confined to territorial limits or else what is 'territory' with regard to internet. Has it been defined in any laws. Can a Court in one State can reverse the order of a Court in another State.

These are some of the important aspects of Cyber World Laws. I am hopeful that this site will see the changing times through its posts.