Continued controversy clouds Indonesia's cyberlaw
Continued controversy clouds Indonesia's cyberlaw
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The birth of a new type of criminal -- the cyber criminal --
has forced many governments, including Indonesia, to issue new
laws and regulations dealing with Internet-related crime.
The drafting of the bill on cyber law in Indonesia, however,
is still shrouded in controversy as experts argue about the
nature of the new law.
They argue whether to create an "umbrella" law which would
generally cover every aspect of the Internet existence, or
"modular" laws that would individually deal with specific crimes.
The University of Padjajaran's cyber law team, which has been
assigned by the Ministry of Communications to prepare the bill on
cyber law, said that a comprehensive law would be more effective
than creating tens of different laws for every offense.
The team has finished its academic draft, and will publish the
bill in November. It is expected to be formalized as law before
2004.
The draft includes sections on electronic commerce, domain
names and intellectual rights, and the protection of private
individuals' rights.
In the mean time, head of the University of Indonesia's
institution for studies on technology law Edmon Makarim said that
a comprehensive law was not needed as existing laws could still
sufficiently deal with cyber crimes.
He said that there was no need to render existing laws
obsolete by a new law, as many of the crimes could be dealt with
by a decree instead of a law.
"If the crimes can be sufficiently dealt with through the use
of a governmental or ministerial decree, why not use them
instead?" Edmon said.
He cited the United States' anti-cybersquatting act, which is
in fact part of the law on trademarks.
"We already have a law on trademarks, why not make a decree
under that for cybersquatting too?" he said.
Cybersquatting is the act of registering a domain name after a
famous trademark, country, area, etc. with the purpose of selling
it at a higher price.
The team from the University of Indonesia has been assigned to
draft a bill on digital signature and electronic transactions by
the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Head of the University of Padjajaran's drafting team Ahmad M.
Ramli, however, said that existing laws could not be implemented
for crimes in the "cyber" world.
"Cyber criminals cannot be put into the same category as those
in the 'real' world. If we do that we will be killing progress
for our information and technology sector," he said, explaining
that a lot of Internet-related offenses were committed by people
"having a go" and not for the purpose of making money.
That was why the draft had differentiated crimes committed
intentionally for profit and those committed unintentionally;
penalties were light, with jail terms of one year to five years
maximum, and fines between Rp 100 million (US$10,500) and Rp 900
million maximum.
Nevertheless, Edmon said that specific laws, such as the laws
on digital signature and electronic commerce, could deal more
explicitly with the offenses and would be more effective in
combating crimes than the more generalized law.
"In the end, when there are more specific laws on cyber
crimes, what will happen to the comprehensive law? It will be
diluted," he said.