MALAYSIA: ‘Cyber Laws’ Passed To Support High-Tech Dreams

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anil Noel Netto

PENANG, Malaysia, Apr 1 1997 (IPS) - Malaysia is busy putting a place a network of ‘cyber laws’ to support its ambitious plans for attracting companies into making the country a hub for multimedia commerce.

Among the government’s plans are Malaysia’s emergence as the first country in the world to set up a ‘cyber court’, a minister in the prime minister’s department said recently.

With advanced ‘cyber laws’ to make this possible, the country would be “the first on-line reference centre for criminal cases world-wide”, the official said.

Parliament has passed several new ‘cyber bills’ in its current sitting, which started on 24 March. The bills cover computer crimes, digital signature, intellectual property protection, and telemedicine development.

These are the first steps in setting up a regulatory framework to support companies that will be into multimedia commerce and locating in the proposed 50 km by 15 km Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) south of Kuala Lumpur.

The Super Corridor project is being pushed by no less than Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who sees it as a high-tech paradise that will transform Malaysia into South-east Asia’s technology heavyweight.

The Super Corridor would combine business incentives with advanced computer technology and skills to provide a hub for hundreds of multimedia and information-technology firms.

But for this to be successful and attract investors, Malaysia would have to demonstrate its adherence to and respect for intellectual property rights. Indeed, experts say this is the real aim of the country’s new cyber laws, even if they cannot at once be implemented.

For instance, opposition leader Lim Kit Siang asked how Malaysia can have the world’s first ‘cyber court’ “when its judicial system has not yet gone on-line while other countries are already quite advnaced in electronic usage in their administration of justice”.

Mustafa Annuar, a lecturer in mass communications, said: “The new legislation is a way to impress on investors that Malaysia means business in copyright protection.” He added that “the cyber bills are more to protect the international players in the MSC and to encourage them to come over here.”

But Mustafa says such strict ‘cyber laws’ would mainly benefit Western software creators, while software users in the developing world would have to fork out large sums to buy software.

The government also plans to pursue two other laws on information technology. But the fate of these bills – on multimedia convergence and electronic government – remains uncertain for now pending further further study.

The bill on electronic government will be crucial when Malaysia’s new administrative capital, called Putrajaya, is ready. Putrajaya, which lies in the Super Corridor, will be the centre of electronic government.

Meantime, Lim urged the government to allow full public discussion of the proposed ‘cyber laws’. He said Malaysians are entitled to know how the government plans to fulfill its pledge to provide the region’s best copyright protection and ‘cyber laws’ to carve a niche for itself in high technology.

The bills have not been circulated to the public. The Malaysian Medical Association and the Malaysian Bar Council, whose members are to be affected by the ‘cyber laws’, have not been consulted.

Experts say the scope of the computer crimes bill must to be wide enough to cover every possible crime. “We want the definition of the law in the bill to be wide enough to cover stealing of data,” said professor Khaw Lake Tee.

After all, she said that in cyberspace “an unauthorised person can just enter a system and copy information, which amounts to stealing”. The bill, she said, should also clarify if computer evidence is admissible in court.

While these ‘cyber bills’ should beef up the country’s technology backbone, critics say they are not a total solution to computer hacking or to threats to integrity of computer networks.

Recently, a computer hacker easily tampered with Telekom Malaysia’s Internet home page. Lim cites a United States General Accounting Office report that say computers of the U.S. defense department had been subjected to 160,000 attacks in 1995.

Others fear the right to privacy may be affected once all databanks in the country are linked, as is the eventual plan.

“Protection of privacy through data protection legislation is necessary in an information society,” Lim said. He said the vast flows of all kinds of personal information through computer networks, such as credit card information, transaction processing and health information, made such laws vital.

Mustafa agrees that “free flow of information can be very beneficial to business people and the government – but all this at the expense of the citizens’ right to privacy”.

He notes the irony in the fact that while Malaysia talks about leaping into the era of high technology – which entails opening up and freedom of exchanging information – it still has laws that can be used to clamp down on dissent.

“Surely, along with these cyber laws, one should also think of repealing laws that hinder the free flow of information such as the Official Secrets Act,” says Mustafa. “It should go hand in hand.”

With free flow of information on the Internet, there should be more room for freedom of expression in society, Mustafa argues. Thus, he says the Official Secrets Art and the Printing Presses and Publications Act, both of which have been pinpointed as curtailing media freedom, should be repealed.

Social campaigners have long been calling for these laws to be replaced with a new Freedom of Information Act. More than a string of ‘cyber bills’, they argue, such a law would truly propel Malaysia into the Information Age.