The Need for Cyber Law

Why ordinary law was not enough

When commerce, communication, and record-keeping moved onto computers and the internet, a set of problems appeared that traditional law simply could not answer. Cyber law was created to solve them.

1. Legal recognition of electronic records. A contract, an invoice, or a government filing traditionally had to be on paper to be valid and to be accepted as evidence in court. If an agreement made by email or a return filed on a website had no legal standing, e-commerce and e-governance could not function. Cyber law gives electronic records the same legal value as paper.

2. Legal recognition of electronic and digital signatures. A handwritten signature identifies the signer and shows intent. Online there is no pen and paper, so the law had to recognise a reliable electronic equivalent that proves who signed and that the record was not altered afterwards.

3. A borderless, fast, and anonymous medium. A crime committed on a computer can affect victims in another city or country within seconds, and the offender can hide behind fake identities. Physical-world laws about theft, fraud, and trespass did not clearly apply to data, networks, and digital identities.

4. New kinds of wrongdoing. Hacking, virus attacks, identity theft, online obscenity, and data theft had no clear place in older criminal law. Cyber law names these offences and fixes penalties for them.

5. Protection of privacy and sensitive data. Businesses and websites hold huge amounts of personal information — names, card numbers, health and financial data. Cyber law places a duty on those who hold such data to protect it, and compensates people harmed by careless handling. …