The Role of Law in the Digital Environment: A Carrier not Barrier

By: Sonny Zulhuda

Excerpt from my lecture at the Law Faculty of the Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY), Indonesia in October 2011.

“In the digital environment where information becomes a currency at both individual and organisational levels, law plays an enormously important role, for at least three reasons.”

Firstly, information assets such as personal data, corporate records, trade secrets and customers database are getting more valuable but increasingly harder to keep or secure. This is due to the increasing sophistication of technologies that enable easy dissemination of data. Secondly, there are always gaps and loopholes where malicious minds are bound to exploit the information assets such as the Steve Jobs-related malware and spam. What ordinarily looks like a genuine message requesting some business venture or technical assistance is a preface for multi-million frauds online; ‘sharing files’ between friends may be another trick for espionage or unauthorised access; and what appears like a routine computer glitch may yet turn to a deadly terrorist acts.

“The fact that the law is often lagging behind the perpetrators does not help the situation either — and this is the third reason that motivates the effort to strengthen the role of the law, it can play a significant deterrent factor by imposing certain liabilities for the culprits.”

The report can be found in the Law School’s web-page.