Indian newspapers recently carried reports captioned “Crimes
against women: Send porn MMS, emails, land in jail for 3 yrs, pay Rs 50,000
fine. Cybercrime through filming
and distributing of porn mmses of unsuspecting women, have always captured newspaper
headlines in India. Publicized cases have been few and convictions almost
negligible.
According to these reports an
amendment to the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986 was
cleared by the Indian Cabinet which brought in stringent penalties for
transgressors using electronic media. Until now the 26 year old act, only covered
print advertisement and publications
When I read the fine print of
the amendment it struck me that this was not in the least a law against
cybercrime, only an amendment to include the indecent representation of women
in electronic advertisements. Beyond proving how newspaper headlines can be
fallacious, it amply establishes that cyber laws are daunting to enact, and far
from practical implementation.
Trying to amend old laws to
accommodate new behavior in the Internet era is fundamentally flawed, though it
may be a quick fix. In the past, by using
print media, it was arduous for ordinary individuals to distribute indecent
content to scale. Consequently, when the act was written, twenty-six years ago,
it never considered this as an issue. But today, in the electronic world,
equipped with a mobile phone camera and the Internet, anyone with a dirty motive
or opportunity can do it. Such indecent online postings by solitary individuals
like trolls, bullies, pornographers, or even cybercitizens settling scores online
are commonplace.
New laws to tackle cybercrime must be written which embody the new genre
of criminal behavior and cybercitizen misdemeanors.
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