Tough law on cards

The government has readied a draft of "cyber security act", which has the provision for 20 years' imprisonment for committing "cyber terrorism", and arrest of suspects without warrants.

According to the draft, a crime committed online with its effect in another country would be considered cyber terrorism.

Legal and industry experts are very critical of the draft. They said the government wants to formulate this act only to control social networks and the bloggers. They said the draft does not bring anything new to the table, apart from increasing the punishment for cyber crime.

They even went on to say that the government could not secure people's data but 

wants to control people's voices.

Aneek R Haque, a counsel at the Supreme Court, said if the draft was passed in its current state, abuse of law would increased. "Law enforcers being able to arrest anyone without a court order is by far the worst thing in the draft," he said.

"Most of the issues are already covered by the ICT act and the pornography act … here only the punishments are increased … another means to control the social networks and blogging," said Aneek, who is a former legal consultant to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

Echoing the opinion, Abu Saeed Khan, senior policy fellow of LIRNEasia (a regional think tank on ICT policy and regulation), said, "This is a reproduction of the much criticised amendments the government had unilaterally made to the ICT Act, 2006, on October 9, 2013."

Saeed said the draft was a poorly crafted legislation since superficial assumptions triumphs over evidence. "It will allow rampant abuse of power by the law enforcers," he said.

The draft said a controller would carry out probes anywhere in the country if there was a threat to the internet infrastructure.

A person guilty of cyber crime committed in Bangladesh affecting Bangladesh could be sentenced up to 14 years' imprisonment or fined up to Tk 1 crore, or both.

Not going into details, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, state minister for ICT, said, they had already noticed some points that need to be discussed with industry stakeholders.

"We want to take some time to finalise the act," Palak told The Daily Star on Monday after an event of the ICT Expo.

According to International Telecommunication Union, Bangladesh's position on the readiness of cyber security is 79 out of 105 countries. In the union's report published last Thursday, Bangladesh scored 0.294 out of one.

The report puts India (0.706), Sri Lanka (0.412), Thailand (0.412) and even Myanmar (0.382) ahead of Bangladesh on cyber security readiness.

The USA was first scoring 0.824.

The report said Bangladesh did not have specific regulations and compliance requirements.

Rajshahi University Associate Prof Zulfiqar Ahmed of the Department of Law had prepared the draft and submitted it to the ICT division on April 19. Later, an English translation of the draft was handed over to Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the ICT adviser to the prime minister.

Zulfiqar claimed that the new law would not violate human rights as it would give the police more power and at the same time restrict the police's authority in some cases.

"Amended ICT act has lots of deficiencies on human rights ground but here I tried to cover the issue," claimed Zulfiqar.

He said he had gone through similar acts of Singapore, the USA, India, and Pakistan before making the draft.

The draft can be found on the ICT ministry website under the link "Acts and Rules", where only acts passed by parliament are usually shown.

The draft has a provision for creating a post of national security adviser, who would be the supreme authority for all decisions and at the same time enjoy indemnity from the act.

"There is nothing said on the adviser's quality and status … ," Aneek said, adding, "And it is obvious since indemnity is here, the adviser would enjoy super power without any responsibility."

The draft has provision for setting up a "National Internet (Cyber) Security Organisation" for protecting Bangladesh's sovereignty, security and integrity, and friendship with foreign countries and others.

The draft suggested a minimum five years of jail for offenders who harm someone's computer network, erase or distort data or send electronic messages with false information to defraud a person.

Several crimes in the draft have been mentioned as cyber terrorism with a minimum four-year imprisonment.

EVEN FOREIGNERS CAN BE TRIED

Aneek said it was illogical that none could comment on any international issue and that if a foreigner commented on a Bangladeshi issue, he or she could be tried under this act.

The draft has clauses to try foreigners, individuals and organisations. If someone tried to obstruct an international organisation from conducting its activities, it would be considered cyber terrorism, according to the draft.

If anyone tried to enter the network of another person or organisation or try to infect it with a virus, it would be considered cyber terrorism.

According to the draft, taking photographs secretly and publishing them without permission would be considered a crime with a provision for imprisonment up to 10 years.

Industry people said this provision was also incorporated in the pornography act.

Saeed questioned the competence of the people concerned who drafted the law. "It refers to the confiscation of floppy disks, which is no longer used."

He said the government should conduct public consultation prior to finalising the proposed law that concerns complex technical and social issues.

A senior official of the ICT division requesting anonymity said, "We see no indication that a public consultation meeting on it would be held. As the draft is on the web, the government sees it as public consultation."