While attempting to understand the provisions of the Indian Information Technology Act 2000, it is important to remember that the legislation is, first and foremost, electronic commerce legislation. When the very first draft version was prepared it was called the Electronic Commerce Bill, in keeping with the prime objectives and duly referring to the Ministry of Commerce, from where it came. With the subsequent creation of the Ministry of Information Technology, the draft Bill was re-christened with the rather generic title of the Indian Information Technology Bill. The raison d’etre was the same – ‘functional equivalence’ that electronic records and transactions would be accorded an equal weight in evidence law as traditional paper records.
Crimes must be distinguished or be capable of distinction based on whether they are crimes relating to the machine (the computer or any other electronic device) or crimes relating to the medium (the internet). What is the role of the medium vis-a-vis the crime? In this realm, education plays a major role. Law enforcement needs desperately to understand the ingredients of a crime in the new medium. The police need to be educated to know that not every offence involving a computer is a cyber crime. For one, the term ‘cyber crime’ is not defined in the Act. There are numerous crimes, such as ‘cyber blackmail’ and ‘cyberstalking’ where either the medium is merely incidental to or plays a part in enhancing the crime; but where nonetheless traditional law would hold strong and fast. What is needed is perhaps an urgency to classify computer offences, and also review offence provisions under national intellectual property (IP) laws; so that all IP statutes are in sync with the Information Technology Act.
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