CYBER LAW: ‘NEW LEGISLATIONS WILL INCREASE DEMAND FOR CYBER LAWYERS

New laws on data protection, compulsory disclosure of security breaches and others will also mean new career avenues for cyber lawyers.

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From the beginning of civilisation, law has been an important discipline. With time, the profession’s various aspects crystallised into verticals. The twentieth century was all about the consolidation of these verticals. The century also saw the greatest game-changer since the discovery of fire – the advent of the internet. No other event has impacted the way people think, believe or do commerce, on this scale. Its wide adoption prompted an examination of the legal policy and regulatory nuances pertaining to the internet. That’s where the discipline known as cyberlaw originated.

The internet was born in 1969 but it was only in the 1990’s when it came to be adopted on a global scale. This presented challenges that questioned basic jurisprudence. It demanded a new and separate legal discipline.

Today, that discipline is more than two-and-a-half decades old, but is constantly evolving as new technologies and technological paradigms confront us in our daily lives.

Need for cyber laws

There is no one global cyber law in place and there’s a lack of norms of behaviours in cyberspace. That’s why countries have started coming up with their own distinctive legislations, cyber-legal regimes, on things like e-commerce and the internet in general.

India was inspired by the January 1997 United Nations General Assembly resolution asking member nations to come up with national laws to promote e-commerce. India’s Information Technology Bill was enacted into law in 2000. The Information Technology Act 2000 is India’s cyber law, the mother legislation pertaining to everything digital. If you’re using any of the seven raw materials in your daily life – computers, computer systems, computer networks, resources, communications devices, data and information in electronic form – you are covered by the law.

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