New IT Act to block child porn
By agencies   |   Tuesday, 16 August 2005, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: The government is amending the IT Act to include punishment for pushing child pornography into cyberspace. Going by the proposals in the draft, likely to be finalized after this week’s crucial meeting of the expert committee, "publishing or transmitting child pornography through electronic communications" could attract imprisonment of at least three years, which could go up to seven years in case of repeat offence. There will also be fines of up to Rs 1 million. Child pornography is being defined as "material that features a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct". Fines are also being increased for pushing obscene information or material in general. The amended Act will include a new range of computer crimes to cover areas like privacy, information protection and harming computer systems through viruses. The entire Section (66) in the IT Act 2000 is proposed to be renamed as 'Computer related offences', taking it beyond the current scope that has been limited to hacking. Overall, there are 18 amendments and revisions to the Act. One of the proposals in IT Act's Section (72), which aims to check the 'breach of confidentiality and privacy', seeks to provide compensation of up to Rs 2.5 million to the person about whom information has been disclosed by any intermediary (telecom service provider, Internet service provider, cyber cafes and the like), without his "consent and with intent to cause injury to him". Another proposal to amend this section seeks to check "sting operations by electronic media and other unlawful activities", by suggesting one year's imprisonment or fine of up to Rs 200,000, in case the accused "intentionally captures or broadcasts an image of a private area of an individual without his consent, and knowingly does so under circumstances in which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy". The reasonable expectation of privacy by a person is being defined where: (1) he or she could disrobe in privacy, without being concerned that an image of a private area of the individual was being captured; or (2) a private area of the individual would not be visible to public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or private place. According to persons familiar with the proposed amendments, there has been a spate of incidents that have created controversy over the past few years and necessitated widening the scope of the IT Act. These include MMS sex clips involving schoolchildren, arrest of officials of an auction website for hosting one such clip, electronic distribution of pornography involving look alikes of Bollywood actresses and frauds in BPOs. Such incidents could not be handled effectively under the current rules. In fact, the rules to hold intermediaries responsible are being relaxed, sources said.

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