Moily for separate law to tackle cyber crimes

New Delhi, Jan 31: Law Minister M Veerappa 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 here.

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.

–Agencies