It is high time for the government to amend IT Act 2000 to protect and safeguard confidential information and data of companies, feel the chambers of commerce. An amendment is required in section 43 (a)-(h) of IT Act 2000 where the maximum limit of damages to the affected person needs to be increased from Rs 1 crore to a higher amount, they say.
The duration of punishment to an employee, in case he leaks the financial data of his company, needs to be substantially increased from present three years. Also, theft of corporate data should be made a non-bailable offence, they demand.
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) secretary general Amit Mitra said, ?Provision of automatic injunctions need to be introduced to grant immediate relief to the corporate entities. The government should introduce much-needed specific stringent provisions for data protection?.
According to Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), all cyber laws should be very strict. CII secretary general Chandrajit Banerjee said, ?Things related to the technical aspect like R&D should be addressed in a stricter manner. Frauds and cyber crimes like leakage of the research and development (R&D) data, which costs the company a huge sum (in crores), and other important technical information related to the companies are on a rise these days. Depending upon the increasing rate and nature of crime, cyber laws should be made stricter.?
Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) secretary general DS Rawat said, ?Currently, the cyber laws are not adequate to protect the data, especially corporate data. Many companies have suffered heavy losses owing to data leakages and have lodged police complaint too. However, since the cyber laws are not strong enough to punish the culprit, no action has been taken in this respect so far. Hence, we urge the government to do something about it.? The cyber laws need to be re-looked into so that they suit the prevailing conditions, he adds.
