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Monday, June 4, 2012

Evidence (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2012 : Grave repercussions for internet users


24 April 2012 | Express Yourself | Posted by Foong Cheng Leong

Dissecting the presumption of fact relating to publication in the controversial new Bill.

The Evidence (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2012 was one of the bills rushed and passed by the Parliament recently. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz, when winding up the Evidence (Amendment) Bill 2012, said the use of pseudonyms or anonymity by any party to do cyber crimes had made it difficult for the action to be taken against them. Hence, the Evidence Act 1950 must be amended to address the issue of Internet anonymity.

The amendments introduced s. 114A into the Evidence Act 1950 to provide for the presumption of fact in publication in order to facilitate the identification and proving of the identity of an anonymous person involved in publication through the internet. In simple words, s. 114A introduces 3 circumstances where an Internet user is deemed to be a publisher of a content unless proven otherwise by him or her.
Men in masks, beware of s.114A.

Although it is stated that the amendment is to cover anonymous persons on the internet, the effect of the amendment is quite wide. You see, we, especially social media network users, generally do not use our real names on the Internet. We use nicknames and pseudonyms. Our home addresses do not appear on our account. We sometimes use fictional characters or even digitalized images of ourselves as our profile picture. All these are done to protect our own privacy. So, if none of my personal details appear on my account, does this mean I am anonymous? If someone’s identity cannot be directly ascertained from his account, I would think that he would be anonymous.

The new s. 114A(1) states that “A person whose name, photograph or pseudonym appears on any publication depicting himself as the owner, host , administrator, editor or sub-editor, or who in any manner facilitates to publish or re-publish the publication is presumed to have published or re-published the contents of the publication unless the contrary is proved”. In simple words, if your name, photograph or pseudonym appears on any publication depicting yourself as the aforesaid persons, you are deemed to have published the content. So, for example, if someone creates a blog with your name, you are deemed to have published the articles there unless you prove otherwise. If you have a blog and someone posts a comment, you are deemed to have published it. If you have a Facebook page and an user posts something on your wall, you are deemed to have published it!

Subsection (2) provides a graver consequence. If a posting originates from your account with a network service provider, you are deemed to be the publisher unless the contrary is proved. In simple terms, if a posting originates from your TM Unifi account, you are deemed to be the publisher. In the following scenarios, you are deemed to be the publisher unless you prove the contrary:-

(1) You have a home network with a few house mates sharing one internet account. You are deemed to be the publisher even though one of your house mates posts something offensive online.

(2) You have wireless network at home but you did not secure your network. You are deemed to be the publisher even though someone “piggybacks” your network to post something offensive.

(3) You have a party at home and allows your friends to access your PC or wireless network. You are deemed to be the publisher even though it was a friend who posted something offensive.

(4) Someone use your phone or tablet to post something offensive. You are deemed to be the publisher.

As for subsection (3), you are presumed to have published a content if you have custody or control of any computer which the publication originates from. Here, you are deemed to be the publisher so long your computer was the device that had posted the content. So if someone “tweetjacks” you or naughtily updates your Facebook with something offensive, you are deemed to be the publisher unless you prove otherwise.

Admittedly, the amendments certainly saves a lot of the investigator’s time. It is very difficult to trace someone on the Internet. It will make prosecution for, among others, defamation, offences under the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998 and Computer Crimes Act 1997 and, election offences much easier. But it is not impossible to trace someone. There are many cases where perpetrators are caught and charged.

I do not see the logic to deem someone to be a publisher. If an investigator is unable to trace the anonymous internet user, then why should the innocent Internet user take the rap? The onus of proof should always be on the prosecuting side. In the English case of Applause Store Productions Limited & Anor v Grant Raphael [2008] EWHC 1781 (QB), the claimants were awarded £22,000 in damages against Raphael, an old school friend, who had created a false personal profile of the claimants on Facebook. The claimants convinced the Court that Raphael was the person who created the fake profile even though he claimed that he had a party at his house and someone in that party created the account.

In summary, the new amendments force an innocent party to show that he is not the publisher. Victims of stolen identity or hacking would have a lot more problems to fix. Since computers can be easily manipulated and identity theft is quite rampant, it is dangerous to put the onus on internet users. An internet user will need to give an alibi that it wasn’t him. He needs to prove that he has no access to the computer at that time of publication and he needs to produce call witnesses to support his alibi.

Clearly, it is against our very fundamental principal of “innocent until proven guilty”. With general election looming, I fear this amendment will be used oppressively. Fortunately, the amendment is not in force yet. I strongly hope that the government will relook into this amendment.

Dipetik dari web Loyar Buruk

9 comments:

Ahmad Syihan Ismail said...

org kapong nk pehe guana lagu ni.

Mohd. Abd. Rashid Bin Yah al-Kubrawiy al-Husaini said...

hok pehe la kena tolong syarah ko hok tok pehe tu.

Ahmad Syihan Ismail said...

wt kot nnayu la

Isroz Ismail said...

Kira ISP la bersalah... Sbb sediakan perkhidmatan internet.

Mohd. Abd. Rashid Bin Yah al-Kubrawiy al-Husaini said...

Dengan media baru yang semakin popular seperti Facebook, Twitter termasuk blog, serta usaha dalam menjadikan rakyat lebih bertanggungjawab terhadap aktiviti mereka di atas talian, kini ia telah pun ditetapkan yang mana Akta Keterangan (Pindaan) 2012 bakal dikuatkuasakan bermula 1 Jun 2012.
Bagi yang tidak ketahui, melalui pindaan pada Akta Keterangan, ia menetapkan yang mana para pengguna internet akan bertanggungjawab terhadap sebarang kandungan yang dihantar ke internet melalui rangkain atau pun peranti mereka. Secara ringkasnya, sekiranya seseorang pengguna menghantar komen pada blog anda, halaman facebook page anda, Tweetjack akaun Twitter anda, mahupun dengan 'menumpang' taian WiFi anda, maka anda akan dipertanggungjawabkan terhadap sebarang perkara yang dikongsikan melaluinya.
Selain daripada itu, ia juga mengatakan yang mana sekiranya seseorang memulakan halaman Facebook, Twitter, blog mahupun sebarang perkara menggunakan nama dan gambar anda dan menerbitkan kandungan yang bertentangan dengan undang-undang serta menfitnah seseorang melaluinya, maka anda akan didapati bersalah dan perlu membuktikan sebaliknya.
Anda mungkin akan menghadap masalah sekiranya :
1. Anda mempunyai blog, dan seseorang pembaca menerbitkan komen, maka anda akan dianggap sebagai menerbitkan komen tersebut.

2. Anda mempunyai halaman Facebook Pages, dan seseorang pengguna menghantar komen atau menerbitkan sesuatu pada Wall, maka anda dianggap sebagai menerbitkannya.


3. Seseorangmenggunakan Tablet atau telefon pintar anda untuk menghantar sesuatu yang tidak baik, maka anda akan dianggap sebagai menerbitkannya.

4. Seseorang menggunakan komoputer atau laptop anda untuk menerbitkan sesuaut pada internet, maka anda akan bertanggungjawab ke atasnya.


5. Seseorang menceroboh ke talian WiFi anda dan menghantar pelbagai perkara yang bertentangan dengan undang-undang di internet, maka anda akan bertanggungjawab ke atasnya.

6. Dan pelbagai perkara yang berkaitan.

Didalam arena digital dan elektronik ini, semestinya ia boleh dikatakan perkara ini salah satu perkara yang sukar untuk direalisasikan. Apatah lagi memandangkan pada halaman Facebook dan Twitter sesiapa sahaja boleh menggunakan nama dan gambar orang lain, dan berlakon seperti mereka.
Sebagai contoh, pada hari ini, akaun Facebook Pages untuk seseorang artis mahupun ahli politik sahaja, terdapat lebih daripada satu akaun untuk mereka, yang mana dimulakan oleh peminat dan juga penyokong mereka. Sekadar perbandingan, akaun facebook milik Najib Razak apabila dilakukan carian, secara kasar, terdapat lebih daripada 10 akaun, sekalligus menjadikan beliau bertanggungjawab terhadap kesemua akaun tersebut sekiranya sesuatu yang tidak sepatutunya diterbitkan, sehinggalah beliau membuktikan sebaliknya.
Jadi secara ringkasnya, jagalah peranti dan rangkaian internet anda, disamping bertanggungjawab ke atas pelbagai perkara yang dikongsikan di arena internet, supaya ia tidak menyukarkan anda dikemudian hari.

Mohd. Abd. Rashid Bin Yah al-Kubrawiy al-Husaini said...

Isroz Ismail: hok ni org expert komputer & internet kena buat kajian dan ulasan mengenai kesan kepada pengguna internet.

Raject Je said...

Tuan, nak copy paste untuk share boleh ke penerangan Tuan tu?

Mohd. Abd. Rashid Bin Yah al-Kubrawiy al-Husaini said...

boleh jer

Raject Je said...

Terima kasih Tuan :