Nasscom defends IT Act changes, older laws

Stung by criticism of amendments proposed in the IT Act, software and BPO association Nasscom emphasised on Thursday that the changes will p...

Stung by criticism of amendments proposed in the IT Act, software and BPO association Nasscom emphasised on Thursday that the changes will prevent and punish all conceivable computer-related crimes.

Partly because the new IT law will be subject to a steady stream of reviews, and partly due to the tried-and-tested Indian Penal Code IPC, Contract Act and Consumer Protection Act have found favour among international investors, all will be well in IT, Nasscom reassured.

8216;8216;Let me reassure you again that all conceivable crimes are covered under the proposed changes,8217;8217; Nasscom8217;s research head Sunil Mehta said. 8216;8216;The aim is to review the new law every 18 or 24 months, to see if it is adequate or not.8217;8217;

Amendments to the IT Act, made public by the IT ministry on Tuesday, were widely criticised for deleting terms such as 8216;8216;hacking8217;8217;, giving the government sweeping powers to monitor the Internet, easing liabilities of Network Service Providers and not bringing in a specific data protection law.

Nasscom, which played a key role in finalising and approving the proposals, clarified that the changes were actually 8216;8216;reasonably satisfactory.8217;8217; They would, in fact, punish a wider variety of computer-related crimes, ranging from identity theft, phishing, Denial of Service DoS attacks, hacking and perhaps, even spamming, it said.

8216;8216;Since introduction of the IT Act, 2000, new computer-related crimes have proliferated aside from hacking. Following the UK and Australia example, we want that any crime using a computer or a computer network should be liable, without having to point out 8216;hacking8217;, 8216;phishing8217; or 8216;DOS attacks8217; specifically,8217;8217; Mehta said. Nasscom also pointed out need for better enforcement of laws such as IPC, Contract Act and Consumer Protection Act.

Data protection law
NEW DELHI: The proposed amendments to the IT Act emphasise self-regulation, a trend that Nasscom plans to support by invoking voluntary members from the IT industry. Plans are to evolve a set of practical norms around information and data security, which will be self-audited by the members of this grouping. 8216;8216;We hope to have the scheme up and running in a year. The members will run audit checks on each other and also train small and mid-size companies on industry best practices,8217;8217; said Nasscom VP, Sunil Mehta. 8212; ENS