IT Amendment Bill soft on cyber criminals: Assocham

Claiming the Information Technology Amendment Bill 2008 to be lenient on cyber criminals, industry body Assocham today said certain issues needed to be re-addressed before the Bill is enacted into legislation.

"The most startling aspect of the new amendments is that they seek to make the Indian cyber law a cyber crime friendly legislation -- a legislation that goes extremely soft on cyber criminals," it said in a release.

The bill also lacks in measures to provide security to data.

"The Information Technology Amendment Bill 2008 in Parliament got passed with unprecedented hurry, without any discussion in both the Houses," Assocham said. It sought certain issues needed to be re-addressed before the Bill is enacted into legislation.

Given the apparent rise in technology adoption, it is increasingly being found that despite all precautions been taken, employees are still taking away confidential data from companies, the chamber said.

The inability of the law to provide confidentiality to corporate and individual data and information in the electronic form are likely to complicate matters further for Indian companies and citizens, it said.

Another major failure of the bill is that it has not dealt with the issue pertaining to spam, it said.

The chamber said the bill do not address jurisdictional issues.

According to it, the amendments make it mandatory for corporates possessing, dealing or handling any sensitive personal data or information in a computer resource to maintain reasonable security practices, and procedures.