The Hindu Business Line : Amendment of IT Act: Govt to formulate rules soon

The Government would soon come out with rules and regulations around the provisions of the IT Act Amendment legislation, according to a senior official in IT Department.

“We are hoping to issue the rules in a few months…Typically, these rules will be aimed at operationalising certain provision of the legislation,” Mr R. Chandrashekhar, Special Secretary, Department of IT, said on the sidelines of a conference here.

Regulations

Citing an instance of how the rules will work, he said that for provisions pertaining to obligation on service providers, or those around interception of data and communication, or even access to computer-stored information, the rules would identify the authority which would vested with such responsibilities.

It may be recalled that in December 2008, the Lok Sabha passed the IT Act Amendment Bill, which makes publishing and transmitting obscene material in electronic form, besides other e-commerce frauds, a punishable Act.

The Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2006, adds-on provisions to an already existing Information Technology Act, 2000, to combat the latest forms of cyber crimes such as publicising sexually explicit material in electronic form, video voyeurism and breach of confidentiality and leakage of data by intermediary and e-commerce frauds.

Asked whether the Department of IT would push for an extension of the STPI scheme slated to expire on March, 2010, Mr Chandrashekhar said, “All new policy decisions can only be taken after the new Government assumes offices, but definitely it is an important issue on table at the present juncture.”

Web site on online safety

Meanwhile, Indian Computer Emergency Response team (CERT-In) and Microsoft have launched ‘secureyourpc.in’, a Web site aimed at disseminating information on online safety and security to users such as individuals and small and medium businesses. The Web site can be viewed in four languages – English, Hindi, Marathi and Tamil.

The site also creates and collates information on security and privacy issues. Regular updates on matters of safety and security, downloads and tips and suggestions are some of the other features of the site.

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