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| Sunday, 02 April 2006 |
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Legal safety net for Electronic Transactions The Electronic Transactions Bill, which was approved unanimously after debate by Parliament on March 7, was finalised following a Joint Cabinet Memorandum of Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, President Mahinda Rajapakse, Minister of Trade, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Tissa Vitharana. Consequently the Cabinet of Ministers authorised the draft legislation to be prepared by the Legal Draftsman's Department with legal and policy inputs from the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), ensuring that the draft legislation is in conformity with international standards and practices and the requirements of the IT industry. As stated in the preamble to the legislation, it is meant "to recognise and facilitate the formation of contracts, the creation and exchange of data messages and other communications in electronic form, in Sri Lanka and to provide for the appointment of a certification authority and accreditation of certification service providers and to provide for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto". "The legislation also deals with the legality and the modalities to engage in electronic forms contracting, including the recognition of an offer and acceptance in electronic form, attribution of electronic records and acknowledgment of receipt by the originator of a communication," said Jayantha Fernando, Legal Advisor to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, which functions under the President's office. The Bill also excludes several categories of transaction from the application of the Act. These include, execution of a will or any other testamentary disposition a Power-of-Attorney as defined in Section 2 of the Power of Attorney Ordinance a Trust as defined in the Trusts Ordinance excluding a constructive, implied and resulting trust and a contract for sale or conveyance of immovable property or any interest in such property. "While we initiate efforts to focus on technological developments through ICT development programs such as the e-Sri Lanka Development Project, being implemented by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, the importance of ensuring parallel developments in the Legal framework is essential," Fernando said. The Electronic Transactions Bill is an important piece of legislation for the overall development of ICT, electronic commerce as well as e-government activities in Sri Lanka. The Bill covers most issues usually covered under e-Transaction Legislation, except "consumer protection" issues, which are generally addressed through separate legislation. With the phenomenal growth of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Sri Lanka there is an increasing trend towards ICT based commercial activity, commonly known as e-Business or e-Commerce. With the advancement in mobile technology, we now see a newer phenomenon known as m-Commerce (mobile commerce), where ordering a pizza or booking an appointment with your medical specialist could be done via SMS. "We now live in an age where many countries are striving to make Government more efficient and accessible to people through the use of ICT. This trend often referred to as e-Government, eventually means having government services available online. A wide range of activities such as registering a company online or filing tax returns could be carried out online. New technology has enabled the use of Electronic Signatures to carry out these transactions in a secure manner," the ICTA Legal Advisor said. |
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