Cyberlaws and cyberspace: preparing for the e-business age

by David Kelleher

The government in May published a white paper on the legislative framework for information practices. In essence, the paper proposed legislation on e-commerce, data protection and computer misuse.

As stated by the government, "traditional laws are inadequate in the information age. Trade over the Internet will always be risky business unless electronic transactions have a sound legal backing. People will always be vulnerable to breaches of privacy without legislation that regulates the processing of their personal data. And victims of theft of data or sabotage of their information systems may find that existing criminal law offers them little remedy".

While such a statement is valid in its entirety, enforcing legislation to regulate something that has no confines and that turns information into bits and bytes, is another matter altogether.

With everyone and everything becoming interconnected, we are moving towards an age when a visit to your GP will be registered in your medical file stored in hospital.

An age when you will no longer have to travel hundreds of miles to close a business deal with a company in northern Europe or Asia.

Simply accepting a digital signature - which will also a valid legal signature - will practically allow global transactions to be concluded at the click of a button.

While such technological advancements will create a smoother working environment, it does not necessarily mean that governments and the legal authorities will be having a day off.

Developments in information technology have revealed enormous loopholes in existing legislation and created dangerous precedents because the legislation did not exist.

Governments worldwide are being faced with a now too-common scenario: legislative developments cannot keep up with technology.

The Maltese government is aware of this and in line with its plans to liberalise the telecommunications sector by 2003, it has also set fit, and rightly so, to introduce three pieces of legislation to cover, as much as possible, any loopholes that could be problematic in the near future.

According to the White Paper, given the right conditions, Malta can thrive on the burst in prosperity.

The proposed bill addresses a number of issues and the importance of a secure basis for electronic communications, contracts, signatures and transactions.

The second bill is based on the requirements of the EU directive on data protection and the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data.

The third bill proposes to set down legislation to protect individuals and companies who, due to their dependency on IT, are vulnerable to crimes committed through their systems.

While everyone may be talking about the new economy there are very few who really understand what is happening, and even more who do not understand the legal implications.

To clarify and properly explain the significance of the three pieces of proposed legislation, a one-day seminar was organised last Friday by EuropAdvise in collaboration with Gatt Frendo Tufigno Advocates at the Westin Dragonara.

The conference was designed to give practical information about the new cyberlaws and about the changing environment for e-business in Malta and internationally.

Its main aims were to:

Provide a briefing on the proposed legislation;

Understand the new legal framework for business;

Gain insight into developments abroad;

Identify new business opportunities and threats to traditional business patterns;

Participate in debate before enactment of the legislation.