With the advent of internet, a whole new category of crime that includes fraud, theft of services and data, copyright infringement, destruction of data through computer sabotage (viruses) and acts causing inconvenience to agencies comprising sensitive, secret or confidential functions has come up. Chances of use of the web as a forum for publication of defamatory content has increased multifold and there is a need for a clear, coherent expression of the law in this area.
Hacking time theft (stealing someone else”s internet time) pornography, sending threatening e-mail, defamatory e-mail, hacking e-mail, e-mail bombs, etc. are the main areas of cyber crime.
The people who commit cyber crimes are mostly those who have white-collar jobs, unlike usual criminals. They can even be high school kids. The territory that a cyber crime can stretch across is immense. It can go over continents
The principles that govern the exercise of criminal jurisdiction are based on the assumption that “crime” is a territorial phenomenon. Cyber crime makes these principles problematic in varying ways and in varying degrees. Unlike real-world crime, it is not physically grounded; it increasingly tends not to occur in a single sovereign territory.
The perpetrator of a cyber crime may physically be in Country A, while his victim is in Country B, or his victims are in Countries B, C, and D and so on. The perpetrator may further complicate matters by routing his attack on the victim in Country B through computers in Countries F and G. The result of these and other cyber crime scenarios is that the cyber crime is not committed “in” the territory of a single sovereign state; instead, “pieces” of the cyber crime occur in territory claimed by several different sovereigns.
Cyber crime is a primary example of cross-border crime, and so, it raises the issue of jurisdiction. This is a tricky issue. Acts on the Internet that are legal in the state where they are initiated may be illegal in other states, even though the act is not particularly targeted at that state. Jurisdiction conflicts abound, both negative (no state claims jurisdiction) and positive (several states claim jurisdiction at the same time). Above all, it is unclear just what constitutes jurisdiction: is it the place of the act, the country of residence of the perpetrator, the location of the effect, or the nationality of the owner of the computer that is under attack? Or all of these at once? It turns out that countries think quite differently on this issue. The cyber crime statutes of numerous countries show varying and diverging jurisdiction clauses. Since internet allows transactions between persons of various jurisdictions, an international agreement (to be crystallized into a convention, later) is required for any regulation. However, in arriving at a uniform law, varying standards adopted by jurisdictions across the world and the point of balance adopted by them have to be kept in mind.
Jurisdiction is a highly debatable issue as to the maintainability of any suit that has been filed. Today with the growing arms of cyberspace the territorial boundaries seems to vanish thus the concept of territorial jurisdiction as envisaged under S.16 of C.P.C. and S.2.of the I.P.C. will have to give way to alternative method of dispute resolution.
In addressing the issues of what problems were posed by cyber-crime, Mr. Corell noted that the scope of international cooperation is limited by international agreements and by the national law of the State from which information has been requested. There are also differing priorities between developed and developing countries. These differences complicate international cooperation and expand the gap between the two groups.
There is no authoritative, comprehensive elaboration of the principle of universal jurisdiction concerning cyber-crime, he said. There are different views concerning the offences that constitute crimes under international law that are subject to universal jurisdiction. There are also different opinions with respect to the significance of the obligation to prosecute or extradite, as contained in various treaties, as evidence of universal jurisdiction. Whether States are not only permitted, but also required, to exercise jurisdiction with respect to crimes under international law, is also subject to different opinions.
CONCLUSION
The magnetism of science has always captivated members of the legal profession. People look up to science to rescue them from the experience of uncertainty and the discomfort of difficult legal decisions, and are constantly disappointed.
The notion of what constitutes science and what it would take to make law more scientific varies across time. What does not vary is our constant return to the well. We are constantly seduced into believing that some new science will provide an answer to laws dilemmas, and we are constantly disappointed.
In the words of Senior Advocate K.T.S. Tulsi — “There is no doubt that [science] is going to overtake the law enforcement agencies by storm. No one will be able to avoid it. It is like standing on the shore and asking the waves of the sea not to come. What is required is a proper debate about the real value of [science] and whether it fits into the overall picture and what use could be made of it by the investigators.”