The Rights of the Deceased: Moral Rights Incidental to Copyright Law
- Vanshika Agrawal
- 2024-04-25
E-Governance and Law – Internet and digitization have grown rapidly over the past decade. This has led to many governments all over the world taking steps to include IT in governmental processes.
IT is used for providing government services, exchange of information, transactions, integration of previously existing services, and information portal.[i] This concept is popularly known as e-governance.
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3 Central and State governments
It takes place majorly through 4 types of interactions. First is government to government where information is exchange between different branches of the same government or central government, state government, and local government.
The second is a government to cities where citizens get an opportunity to interact with the government through a platform and access the various public services provided by the Government. The third is the government to business where businesses interact with the government with regard to the services offered by the government for the businesses.
The last one is the government to employees which involves interaction between the government and its employees in an efficient and speedy manner. The involvement of IT is helpful to ensure that the administration becomes swifter and transparent.
Apart from that it also helps to save costs as well as ensures speedy administration. It helps to simplify the whole governance process and reduce corruption.
Some of the popular examples of e-governance include the National Portal of India, Digital India initiative, Aadhar, Common Entrance Test, filling and payment of taxes online, digital land management systems, etc.[ii] Although this system is quite effective as compared to the traditional system, it has certain legal and other issues associated with it.
India is still a developing country. There is a lack of infrastructure. There are certain areas in the country that do not have access to the internet as well as computers.
Also, lack of literacy is a big hindrance. There are high levels of illiteracy in the country which makes it difficult for the vast majority to understand the entire system and join it. It increases the scope of lax administration. People can easily get away with not doing their work on the basis of technical grounds. [iii]
In order to ensure smooth and effective administration, there is a need for strict IT rules to be formulate and implemented. It presupposes the adoption and use of security measures more particularly empowering and training judiciary and law enforcement manpower with the knowledge and use of cyber forensics and digital evidence. [iv]
In India, there are two main laws prevalent related to e-governance. These are the Right to Information Act 2005 and Information Technology Act 2000. Right to Information Act 2005 was introduce by the government in 2005. Though it existed under Article 19 of the constitution. It is commonly known as RTI Act.
This Act helps to ensure transparency by obligating the Central and State governments to provide citizens with information about policies, rules, and regulations passed by the government. It also provides a penalty in case the government fails to provide such information. Department of Information Technology is making use of technology to help out the government. In providing citizens with such information through the system of e-governance.
The Central Information Commission has a website named www.cic.gov.in which displays the information. In order to make this act reach and benefit the masses. Government and NGOs should create awareness among people at the village level. However, the act lacks proper implementation due to a lack of enforceability procedures.[v]
Government has all the information about the citizens regarding their identity. When such information is available across the network of e-governance, it might get prone to misuse in case the information of the citizens gets leaked.
It raises questions on confidentiality. This issue has been deal with by the Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 72 of the Act imposes a penalty on any person who, having secured access to any electronic record, correspondence, information, documents, or other material using power conferred by the Act or rules, discloses such information without the consent of the person concerned.
[vi] This Act aims to ensure confidentiality and privacy of data. However, this Act is applicable only to the officials who are empower to collect the data. Section 43 of the Information Technology Act 2000 states that a person is liable to pay damages by the way of compensation to the affected person if he without permission of the owner or any other person who is in charge of a computer or computer network makes unauthorized use of that device. But the hackers possess a great threat to privacy all through the entire system is secure through passwords.
Section 69 of the Information Technology Act 2000 provides power to issue directions for interception or monitoring or decryption of any information through computer resources by the provisions established by law breaching privacy.
But the sections in the provision are not enough to curb the crimes. It is held in the case of PUCL v. UOI that the procedure available is inadequate as the controller is given discretionary power and there is no mention of consultation. With the accused before announcing punishment. There is a dire need for proper guidelines to achieve the balance between
the right to privacy of the citizens and the provision of the seizure under the Act. As the same shall not be unfair.
[vii]There is a lack of proper legislation providing protection to e-governance. A few provisions available do not deal with the issue efficiently. Effective legislation should be implement with the purpose of regulating e-governance and ensuring the security and privacy of the citizens.
[i] E- Governance, toppr, ( January 12, 2021, 10:23 am ) https://www.toppr.com/guides/business-law-cs/elements-of-company-law-ii/e-governance/
[ii] E- governance in India, Cleartex, (January 12, 2021, 12:09 pm) https://cleartax.in/s/e-governance#:~:text=Examples%20of%20e%2Dgovernance%20include,systems%2C%20Common%20Entrance%20Test%20etc.
[iii] in India, Cleartex, (January 12, 2021, 1:03 pm) https://cleartax.in/s/e-governance#:~:text=Examples%20of%20e%2Dgovernance%20include,systems%2C%20Common%20Entrance%20Test%20etc
[iv] Issues & Challenges in E-Governance, MCRHDI ( January 12, 2021, 3:09 pm) http://www.mcrhrdi.gov.in/fcg/fbf-week3/challenges%20and%20issues%20in%20e%20governance.pdf
[v] Akanksha, Role of Law in E-governance, Legal Service, ( January 13, 2021, 3:02 pm) http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l143-Role-of-Law-in-E-governance.html
[vi] The Information Technology Act 2000
[vii] Akanksha, Role of Law in E-governance, Legal Service, ( January 13, 2021, 3:10 pm) http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l143-Role-of-Law-in-E-governance.html
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