Teaching Cyber Law in Indian Law Schools
- Prof. (Dr) Debarati Halder, Ph.D*
Professor of Law, Parul Institute of Law,Parul University
The year 2020, which would be known in the history of mankind as Covid 19 pandemic year, had shown us that we need to be dependent on information and communication technology for our day to day survival. Even though India was one of the first countries to enact Information technology Act in 2000 when most of the countries in the world did not even have a draft regulation for controlling the cyber affairs, India did not have the highest internet penetration till 2010 when 3G and 4G spectrum auctioning made the internet easily available for majority of Indians. Presently India ranks second in the world for the highest internet users in the country. This has great significance in the Indian legal field as we need to know about data privacy, patterns of cybercrimes, possible solutions for controlling the online crimes, e-commerce related issues, intellectual property related issues etc. several researches and statistical analysis have shown that worldwide cyber crime rate has steeply increased in recent years. It is expected to escalate more as smart predators are misusing digital communication and Artificial Intelligence based technology. Given the fact that personal data including sensitive personal data is now being stored by almost all private and government stakeholders including the health sectors, courts and government offices, banking sectors, private commercial entities including the civil aviation companies etc., it becomes essential for law students to know about the laws regulating cyber affairs in these areas. Further, we are also getting to see increase in using digital communication technology in accessing government data of national importance by extremist groups. There may be several layers of victimization in this regard as the extremist groups may target the general individuals with low levels of maturity about cyber security to reach out to different data reservoirs (Halder D,2021)[1]. Young lawyers must understand these issues.
Cyber law or the information technology law is not a traditional subject like the procedural laws or the substantial laws that are taught in the Indian law schools since ages. While several public universities and private universities imparting legal education have considered to include cyber law in their respective curriculum, the present system in this regard is not satisfactory. Information technology law is still growing. As such, we may not have sufficient efficient teachers for Information technology law as we have for other traditional legal subjects. Except certain national law schools and elite private law schools, several other law schools unfortunately have not developed a full-fledged standard syllabus for the subject of Cyber law. Several institutes have prescribed syllabus for cyber law that presents over emphasis to the intellectual property related laws and not necessarily towards the core cyber laws and cyber security issues. The repetition of the portions of Intellectual Property laws makes the students think that cyber law majorly skirts around the concept of IPR. But in majority it is not the same. A minute reading into the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008) would show different kinds of rights available to the general individuals who may not prefer to use electronic data or who may prefer to use only electronic data that may have been retrieved from authentic and verified sources. But in reality, many government and corporate offices may not acknowledge this. Where would the aggrieved person find solace then? Only when a trained lawyer /practitioner/law teacher supports such people, explains the laws and rules, such offices may acknowledge their mistakes and also may be made to pay for compensation for the sufferings of the aggrieved persons which had occurred due to the negligence and ignorance of such offices. Students must be taught about cyber jurisprudence from a holistic perspective of crimes, civil liabilities, restorative justice and penology. Otherwise, the entire object of teaching cyber law to young students would become meaningless.
It is expected that Indian law schools will consider including a well drafted syllabus of cyber law in their credit-based curriculums. We need lawyers/practitioners/law teachers who would question the existing lacunae in the information technology laws and would suggest best mechanisms to fix the problems. This would not be possible unless the law schools give highest priority to teachings of cyber law to the law students.
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*Prof (Dr) Debarati Halder, LL.B, LL.M(International & Constitutional law), Ll.M (Criminal & Security law), Ph.D(Law)(NLSIU) is presently working as Professor of law, Parul Institute of Law, Parul University, Gujarat. She is the founder/honorary Managing Director of Center for Cyber Victim Counselling and founder-Secretary of South Asian Society of Criminology and Victimology, She is also the member of board of trustees, International society of Therapeutic Jurisprudence. She can be reached @profdebarati@gmail.com
[1] Halder Debarati. (2021). Cyber Victimology: Decoding Cyber Crime Victimization. Boca Raton, FL, USA: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN: 9781032107523