Emergence of cyber crime and legislative provisions of Bangladesh
Sajib Hossain writes for DOT :
Since the 1990s the World Wide Web has gained exponential growth and popularity, bringing people closely together by creating virtual cyber space communities. Now we live in digital era where a life without internet is absolutely bizarre. The internet is becoming popular day by day because of its some special features. A revolutionary change has come in communication and socio economic transactions by internet. People can communicate very easily in both national and international level. From the Internet World Stats June 30, 2018, we can see that Asian countries are mostly occupied in using the internet (49.0%) whereas European countries 16.8%, North Americans 8.2% and a few range of people of Australia uses the internet (0.7%). After our neighbor country India, Bangladesh is one of the most active users of Internet. Bangladesh internet users in 2000 are 0.1 million and this rate has changed to 80 million in 2017 which is enormous changes. It makes our life easier, dynamic and time and labor saving. Alongside, many of these advantages, there are some dangerous risk in using the internet. This rate of usages of internet causes the cyber-crime.
Cyber-crimes are any crimes that involve a computer and the network. In some cases, the computer may have been used in order to commit the crime, as well as in other cases; the computer may have been the target of the crime. It mainly consists of illegal access to computer system. With the increasing online activities in cyber space, criminal are using this space as well for their own criminal activities. In the process of becoming a digital country, phishing, hacking and stealing of personal data are routine activities in Bangladesh. If we examine the nature of cyber-crime we will find out the crimes against individual, crimes against organizations, crimes against economy, crimes against the society, crimes against the government or national security. Some of the incidents that brings the notice to the public are; a) e-mail threating to the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina through cyber cafe, b) hacking the mail of Brack Bangladesh, c)stealing the transaction report of Dhaka Stock Exchanges through hacking, d) inserting the porno movies to the website of Bangladesh National Parliament, e) similarly happened to the website of Daily Jugantor newspaper, f) e-mail threating to the World Bank Dhaka Office, g) stealing money from the Bangladesh Bank etc.
The government of Bangladesh had ratified Act named ‘Information and Communication Technology Act-2006’ to prevent the violence of using the technology, rising penalize for cyber-crimes setting a minimum of 7 years imprisonment and a maximum of 14 years or a fine of taka 1 crore or both. This Act made cybercrime related offences under section 54, 56, 57 & 61. These offences are both non-bailable and cognizable. Empowering the law enforcers to arrest anyone accused of violating the law without a warrant. ICT Act-2006 as amended in 2013 is obviously a brilliant achievement of Bangladesh in the field of cyber law. But there are still some lacking’s remaining in intellectual property, online transactions like Bikash and in anti-spamming provisions, domain name, crimes through mobile phones which doesn’t recognize as an evidential tool to present e-mail. Bangladesh government also approved the Act named ‘Digital Security Act-2018’. The new Digital Security Act-2018 will be used to deal with defamation, hurting religious sentiment, causing deterioration of law and order, and instigation against any person or organizations through publishing or transmitting any material on a website or in any electronic form.
As a suggestion, the government should act accordingly to enact the Cyber Law in our country to prevent the cyber-criminals from the occurrences. And also establish the Digital Forensic Laboratory in our country for a better investigation and detection of cyber-crime. Nowadays, all banks are dealt through the online banking where cyber security is mandatory. Lastly, we need to provide more training on cyber security and cyber investigation throughout the country to ensure safety in all sectors.
The author is an independent researcher.