By AdminAugust 23, 2020

Laws Against Cyber Crimes in India

Tags: Ace Legal,criminal lawyers in kolkata,Cyber crime law

By: Udita Ghosh. An avid blogger , a final student of LL.B from Symbiosis Law School, Pune and an Intern with Ace legal.   Introduction: In this paper, I am going to look at the laws against cyber-crime in India. The way I am going to approach this essay is firstly, by outlining the types of cyber crimes. Subsequently, I am going to outline the laws present in India that deal with cyber crimes along with analyzing their effectiveness. In the 21^st century, humans are more active in the cyber world than they are in the real world, and such a trend has yielded more negative impacts than they have yielded positive outcomes. Hyperactivity in the cyber world has impacted every aspect of an individual’s life starting from sleep to relationships to jobs to marriages and even one’s private life in a negative way. However, the intent of a cyber world was technological advancement and connectivity for the human race but in contrast, most individuals are so connected with something far and virtual that they have lost connection with what is near and tangible. Individuals, in the world of extremely prevalent and relevant cyber-activities, have a lot of accessibility and this accessibility is quite privileged because it comes with anonymity, and this is where cyber crimes gain their relevance because imagine an individual committing a crime  but that individual will less likely be held responsible for their actions, ohh what a delight! [1]Types of cyber crimes: Cyber crimes involve computers wherein the computer is either a tool and/or a target. When the computer is a tool, it is used to commit real world crimes however, it a computer is a target then another computer is used to target the intended computer. Here is a table that classifies cyber crimes:  

Computer Used as a weapon:

Computer used as a target:

●       Pornography: use of explicit content to sexually excite an individual through movies, books, or any kind of media. ●       Forgery: copying of unauthorized material using sophisticated computers, printers, and scanners. ●       Cyber Terrorism: attacking military installations, power plants, air traffic etc and disrupting their systems. ●       Banking/Credit Card related crimes: compromise a company’s security to attain confidential and financial information. ●       E-Commerce/Investment frauds: false advertisement for a product to lure in buyers or a product that was never delivered but was paid for. ●       Sale of illegal articles: Articles which are not permitted by law such as drugs, animals, weapons, etc. ●       Online gambling: as a facade for money laundering ●       Defamation: post false information/accusations about a person online and spreading it through online bulletins or emails. ●       Cyber Stalking: continually stalking a person online, sending messages to that person, threatening them with the intent of causing emotional distress without any reason. ●       Identity Theft: when someone takes in the name of another person and commits crimes in the name of that person. ●       Data Diddling: change of information before entering it in the computer through a virus before entering into a computer. ●       Theft of internet hours: unauthorized use of internet hours which has been paid by someone else. ●       Theft of a computer system: stealing of a computer, its materials, etc. ●       Physically damaging a computer: breaking a computer system through shock, fire, or excess electricity. ●       Breach of privacy and confidentiality: by hacking into another person’s account or banking information.

●       Unauthorized Access: any kind of access without the permission of the rightful owner or the person in charge of computer, computer device of computer network. ●       Hacking: Breaking into a computer or a computer network. ●       Trojan Attack: A program that pretends to be useful for a computer but in reality damages the computer. ●       Virus Attack: infects other programs and makes copies of itself by spreading it ●       Email Spoofing: is when it appears to have originated from one source but actually has come from a different source. ●       Email Spamming: sending emails to several users using an individual’s email address or sending of malicious codes through emails. ●       Email Bombing: sending identical emails to the same email address. ●       Denial of Service Attacks: flooding a computer with more requests than it can handle which causes the computer to crash and denies access to authorized users.

Laws relating to cyber crimes: India is a pioneer in the field of Information technology which is a huge contributor to the Indian economy. Due to the never-ending growth and development of information technology, there has been a simultaneous increase in the crimes related to computers, and in order to curb these crimes, there has been legislative initiatives in order to regulate the transactions in the cyber world. Thus, the Parliament’s legislative initiative has been the enactment of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Before the enactment of the Information Technology Act 2000, the Indian Penal Code, 1860 dealt with crimes committed using a computer. The act is also concerned with subject matters such as fraud and breach of privacy along with online defamation, and the physical destruction of computers through fires, etc . The crime of unethical hacking is a breach of one of the most fundamental rights as outlined by the Supreme Court of India, the right to privacy. The laws that specifically deal with cybercrime are discussed in detail, below.   Information Technology Act: The main object of the IT Act is to facilitate legal reorganization and regulation of commercial activities through electronic medium. [2]This Act is based on the United Nations resolution No A/GES/51/162; dated 30th January, 1997, as well as on the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce. The act does not define the term cybercrime and does not outline the various forms of cyber crimes. The provisions of this Act deal with the regulation of e-commerce and the system of obtaining digital signatures. [3]The following themes explored by the provisions are:

• Regulating conduct in its unique way;
• Civil regulations to be employed by premise rather than criminal;
• The process of adjudication is entrusted to adjudicating officers rather than regular civil courts;
• Such adjudicating officers are required to know the IT laws or must have judicial experience;
• Adjudicating officers are vested with power of civil court;
• The proceeding to be conducted by such adjudicating officers are to be construed as judicial proceedings;
• The quantum of compensation to be calculated at market rate for loss or sufferings.

As it can be deduced that  cyber laws, in this country, do not deal with all cyber crimes instead, there is an overlap between the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 and the Indian Penal Code, 1960 along with the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Chapter Eleven of the Information Technology Act, 2000 defines certain cybercrimes and prescribes the punishment for those offences. The Information Technology Amendment Act 2008, has brought in changes wherein the various crimes, which are committed by using the computer or any communication device have to be registered under the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Prior to the introduction of the Information Technology Act 2000, the Indian Penal Code dealt with and still deals with cyber crimes.   Convergence between the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860: The Information Technology Act, 2000 contains a wide range of offences such as tampering with computer sources, sending offensive messages, violation of privacy; publishing obscene material etc. these all illegal activities are already recognized as an offence in Indian Penal Code, 1860 which deal with all other crimes, as well. Below, is the overlap between the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860

• Sending threatening messages by email which corroborates with Section 503 IPC
• Sending defamatory messages by email which corroborates with Section 499 IPC
• Forgery of electronic records which corroborates with Section 463 IPC
• Bogus websites, cyber frauds which corroborates with Section 420 IPC
• Email spoofing which corroborates with Section 463 IPC
• Web-jacking which corroborates with Section 383 IPC
• E-Mail Abuse which corroborates with Section 500 IPC
• Pornography which corroborates with Section 292 IPC

Conclusion: Laws that govern cyber crimes in India are outlined in the Information Technology Act, 2000 which has been taken from the UNCITRAL Model Law for the most part however, amendments have been made afterwards to accustom it with the Indian scenario. Laws that govern cyber crimes in India are quite effective for the most part especially when it comes to Cyber Terrorism especially because our defence infrastructure is quite advanced to prevent such kinds of attacks along with our power plant grids of traffic systems which are well-equipped to tackle such attacks if and when they happen. Furthermore, identity theft in India is not so commonplace as it is in the United States of America. Also, the population of India is so huge and diverse that many people are unaware of cashless transactions using debit or credit cards hence, banking threats on individuals are not as grave as they are in western countries but the same cannot be said about companies or corporations. However, the laws that deal with specific cyber crimes like pornography are absolutely ineffective, and I would like to argue that with absolute conviction because the internet is filled with [4]420 million pornographic websites is an epidemic that cannot be dealt with so easily because the internet does not have jurisdiction as to who can view what, and if governments start to impose jurisdictions about viewership then that amounts to censorship which is absolutely contrary to democratic values as a result it becomes a tricky situation to manage. However, when I talk about Indian laws against cyber crimes being ineffective especially in context to pornography, I mean the production and distribution and upload of Indian made pornography which is ubiquitous in the cyber world especially material with south indian content. The internet is filled with such malicious content which is so wide-spread that it shows the inevitable failure of  cyber laws in India in curbing this menace. Moreover, I would like to argue that it is not the laws that are flawed rather, the reason they are ineffective is because of the implementation of these laws along with deep-rooted corruption. In order to minimize the production of pornographic content, there should be a separate wing of the police who hunt down the people and the resources which aid in the production of such content because pornography requires huge amount of human resource many of which are trafficked victims often underage who do not even understand what is going and even if they do, they are quite helpless. I would also like to point out that when explicit content in uploaded on the internet, that is when it comes under the ambit of the cyber laws, and due to considerable anonymity of users on the internet, it is quite difficult to pin down perpetrators which makes the laws considerably ineffective even if they can track down the computer which was used through the IP address but when it comes to pornography, cyber laws cannot save the day on its own as cyber laws will have to work in conjunction with the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 as a result it becomes even more ineffective because these are regular laws in action in an extremely slow and corrupt system. In this paper, I looked at the laws against cyber-crime in India. The way I  approached this essay is firstly, by outlining the types of cyber crimes. Subsequently, I outlined the laws present in India that deal with cyber crimes along with analyzing their effectiveness.   [1]Cyber Law of India : Introduction, Cyber Laws India(2007), http://www.cyberlawsindia.net/ (last visited Jan 27, 2019). [2]IT Act 2000 vs 2008- Implementation, Challenges, and the role of adjudicating officers. By Karnika seth [3]Laws on Cyber Crime: P.K.Singh (2007), Book Enclave, Jaipur, First Publication [4]Cyber Law of India : Introduction, Cyber Laws India(2007), http://www.cyberlawsindia.net/ (last visited Jan 27, 2019).