NEPAL: Landmark Cyber law is silent about online media

Law covers online crimes and gives legal status to bank transactions and other online activities

Nepal News
Thursday, September 23, 2004

By Ram Humagai

The Electronic Transaction and Digital Signature Act-2004, also known as cyber law, has failed to address the problems of online media, the operators say.

The cyber law came in to effect after it received the royal assent as an ordinance from His Majesty King Gyanendra last week. Information Technology (IT)  experts believe that it is a landmark legislation for the development of IT industry in the country.

A couple of major online news portals, including nepalnews.com and kantipuronline.com, and one dozen e-magazines are being published from Nepal at the moment.

Taking part in an interaction programme in the capital Wednesday, chief editor of nepaljapan.com, Kumar Basnet, said the government had not provided any facilities to online publications and journalists associated with them. Vice president of Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ), said the government should incorporate the issue of online journalism in the new ordinance.

The law, however, has a number of positive provisions, say IT entrepreneurs. As per the new law,  activities such as hacking, deleting information, stealing document and software, pasting wrong information and improper and illegal materials would be brought under the judicial scrutiny.

After introducing this law, the government can punish cyber criminals- both an individual or institution with up to five years of imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs.50, 000 or both- based on the severity of their crime. Prior to the introduction of the cyber law, government was dealing with cyber crimes under the Public Offence Act.

The Act also gives legal status to information posted on the web site of government offices, government run corporations, and local bodies. The information posted on web site or correspondence done via electronic devices can get legal status, the Act says.

The cyber law has also given legal status for various banking transactions through electronic media, which will be instrumental in boosting economic activities throughout the world via Internet, say experts.

The  law has made provision of an Appellate Judicial body  to listen to complaints, cases and cyber related crime. Earlier, police were dealing the cyber crime but they were not aware about the technical aspect of the cyber crime and the actions were not effective.

The act has also granted  legal status to digital signature sent through the electronic media, which would be an important provision to introduce e-banking, e-shopping etc. The act finally came into reality after completing a long distance. The Ministry of Science and Technology had drafted the bill and sent it to the dissolved House of Representatives which remains dissolved for over the last two years.

There is no doubt that getting Royal assent on the first ever cyber law in the country is a positive step to develop the IT industry but still many things remain to be done in the near feature, like: drafting of regulations and by-laws under the new Act and establishment of strong implementing mechanism as directed in the Act.

The introduction of the IT policy 2002, establishment of IT Park and  formation of High Level Information Technology Commission are other positive and considerable steps taken by the government to gear up the IT Industry.

The Act also paves way to provide legal status to online news portals in the country, which are providing instant and reliable news and information to hundreds of thousands of people within the country and abroad.

There is no clear provision to regulate online media in the cyber law but the government can introduce regulations under the Act in order to regulate and facilitate the online media.

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Date Posted: 9/23/2004