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The new bill will replace the Information Technology Act 2000, which is currently India's primary legal framework regulating online entities.
As the center works on a modern Internet ecosystem law to replace the two decades old IT law, the introduction of specific online offenses is expected to be a major focus of the upcoming Digital India law.
Indian Express has learned that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) can classify impersonation, identity theft, online phishing and cyberbullying of children as offenses under the new law, recognizing that offenses in the online world, especially social media platforms, can Being unique has no equal in the offline world.
There will be a lot of focus on various user damages in the new bill. A senior government official said the ministry is considering adding issues such as cyberstalking, gaslighting, impersonation, cyberbullying and hunting as crimes. Catfishing is a term originating from online dating in which a user creates false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive romances online.
The new bill will replace the Information Technology Act 2000, which is currently India's primary legal framework regulating online entities. The offenses included in the IT Act are mainly borrowed from the real world since the law was passed before the era of social media and online dating platforms became popular. India currently does not have any laws regarding internet torts.
To craft the Digital India Bill, MeitY learned it reached out to more than 200 youths and parents asking for their input on what they see as a threat online. "The goal is to modernize the legal framework, and that means we have to ask a variety of stakeholders about the harms they face online," the official said.
In July, The Indian Express reported that willful online misinformation and eavesdropping, which is an attempt by a person to post private information about a specific individual online with malicious intent, can also be classified as cybercrime.
Earlier this month, this paper reported that MeitY is also considering regulating a wide range of online platforms including social media websites, e-commerce entities, fact-checking portals and artificial intelligence (AI)-based platforms under the Digital India Act.
As such, it could redefine the old understanding of what an online medium is. Traditionally, these platforms are seen as mere conduits for accessing services on the Internet, with no control over the content they host.
Under the IT Act, there is no classification of brokers. In 2021, MeitY released the Information Technology (IT) Rules, which for the first time created a separate classification for social media brokers and provided specific regulations for them. On Monday (January 2), the ministry released draft amendments to these rules classifying online gaming platforms as intermediaries as well, and placing proposed additional due diligence requirements on them.
The Digital India Bill is also expected to introduce a digital space regulator along the lines of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), impose punitive consequences for breaches, provide governing provisions for emerging technologies such as the metaverse and blockchain, and are expected to have provisions for algorithmic accountability of platforms. social networking, The Indian Express reported earlier this month.
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