Chennai, February 01: Law Minister M Veerpan Moily on Sunday advocated enactment of separate laws and creation of a specialised agency to deal with the menace of cyber crimes, as amending the existing IT Act will not solve the problem.
“I think instead of amending the IT Act we should have separate laws for each of the classification of the cyber crimes. It is a matter we need to deal with, instead of tinkering with the IT Act from time to time to meet the contingencies,” Moily said.
Making laws only to deal with contingencies is “not a desired thing” as it may lead to curtailing the basic substantive rights of the entrepreneurs, Moily said at the launch of the “Cyber Law Enforcement Programme and National Consultation Meeting.”
The Law Minister also lamented that the country lacked a specific enforcement agency to deal exclusively with cyber laws.
He said several countries like United States and South Korea have created such agencies.
He also said that since challenges posed by cyber crime were new to India, the country did not have a collective skill of experts to deal with such situations.
The Law Minister pointed that judicial officers also lacked training to deal with cases related to cyber crimes.
The minister pointed out that even the IT industry lacked self-regulation in areas of privacy and data collection.
Moily said information, communication and technology is the future of global economy.
But at the same time it had the potential to destroy and can become a symbol of evil.
The minister said India will have to manage its IT resources so that they can be used for the benefit of the country and not against it.
He said nature of information available in the cyber world and anonymity attached to it created problems for law makers in dealing with IT related crimes.
Moily said it was essential to get hold of the information which is intangible in nature and changes computer servers in a fraction of seconds.
The minister stressed on the need to be forewarned of an impending crime than taking action after it was committed.
He also pointed at the need to have the latest equipment and technologies to deal with the crime which are committed in a borderless environment.
He said cyber space was a field which was guided by the future, not past and cautioned that law enforcement must work hand in hand with the civic rights of the society.
—Agencies