Draft laws to prevent computer crime get green light from Sri Lanka’s Cabinet and will be gazetted by the end on June. "The good news is that after six to seven years of preparation the Computer Crimes Bill has materialised,” said Jayantha Fernando, Legal Advisor, Information Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka(ICTA), on Tuesday, at a workshop on the freedom of information, organised by the World Bank Institute and the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
"The Bill got Cabinet approval in May and we hope to gazette it by end of June," said Fernando.
Although electronic data transitions are replacing paper transitions even in rural Sri Lanka the local legal system gives no protection to data.
This is because Sri Lankan law traditionally regards ‘property’ as tangible objects and intangible property like data - however valuable - does not qualify for legal protection.
Based on this interpretation, the millions of bits of data - whether going up and down in some from of transa