Experts decry draft Cyber Security Act 2015
Terming the draft Cyber Security Act 2015 as unnecessary, experts have said that a little amendment in some of the existing acts will be good enough to tackle cyber crimes in the country.
During a discussion titled Citizen Right and Freedom of Expression: Cyber Security Act 2015, organised by the Committee for Protection of Fundamental Rights at the VIP lounge of
Jatiya Press Club, members of the civil society said the draft does not bring anything new to the table, apart from increasing the punishment for cyber crime.
Eminent lawyer Barrister Sara Hossain said the existing ICT (Information Communication Technology) Act already has some provisions to tackle cyber crimes. Instead of updating those provisions, the enactment of a new act is a vague step from the government.
A new act should only be formulated when it is necessary, she said adding that when an existing act can tackle the necessary legal translation against a crime, then there is no need for a new act.
The draft said a controller could carry out probes anywhere in the country if there is a threat to the Internet infrastructure. A person guilty of cyber crime committed in Bangladesh affecting the country could be sentenced up to 14 years imprisonment or fined up to Tk 1 crore, or both.
She, however, lauded the provision of punitive measures against child pornography in the new act. Child pornography is happening in Bangladesh and mainly cyberspace is being used to spread it. So, a provision in the draft act to tackle it is praiseworthy.
Hossain said there is an existing act titled Pornography Control Act 2012, where the provision could have been included. The existence of too many acts is never beneficial for the citizen. She also demanded amendment to the sections 46 and 57 of the ICT Act, 2006.The Section 46 has provided huge power to a government-appointed controller to block online content and the Section 57 imposes different sorts of restrictions on the Freedom of Expression, she said.
Kazi Zahid Iqbal, a Supreme Court Advocate, said before preparing the draft act of such an act, the government should have conducted several multi-stakeholders meetings. An act on cyber crime involves expertise of different sectors. It shouldnt be drafted by a single person, rather by a group of experts.
Rajshahi University Associate Prof Zulfiqar Ahmed of the Department of Law had prepared the draft and submitted it to the ICT division on April 19. Later, an English translation of the draft was handed over to Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the ICT Advisor to the Prime Minister.
Prof Ahmed, however, claimed that the new law would not violate human rights, as it would give police more power and at the same time restrict the authority of police in some cases. He said had earlier that he had gone through similar acts of Singapore, the USA, India, and Pakistan before making the draft.
Hana Shams Ahmed, a famous blogger and the coordinator of the CHT Commission, said the government wants to formulate this act only to control social networks and the bloggers. She said the draft does not bring anything new to the table, apart from increasing the punishment for cyber crime. The ICT Act could not take any sort of punitive measures against those who killed bloggers for voicing their opinion. But the same act was used to arrest people for uttering foul words against the people in power.
She said, before writing anything in the social media like Facebook, Twitter, blog, Skype etc., one would be apprehensive whether it would tend to deprave or corrupt people or not, as enacted in the draft act.
Barrister Jotyirmoi Barua said under the ICT Act, there are around 60 cases which are currently under trial, 250 pending and about 1,000 new cases in the pipeline. Cyber crimes happen in online medium and there are some international standards for collecting digital evidence to file a case. We have to measure whether our law enforcement personnel are capable of collecting digital evidence.
