Information Technology Act, 2000: International Perspective with special reference to Bitcoin.

Abstract

Internet is a system of inter-connected computer networks and is today’s significant platform of information & transmission. Its far-flung utilization has led to its entrance in the sphere of trade and commerce, which, in turn, has given escalate to cyber crimes. It is the troubling for parliament as well as law enforcement agencies because of absolute wideness and outreach of cyber space. So to tackle this, cyber security is an essential component to be considered if any person wants to get protected from mischievous people and malicious software from the internet. Internet is the one tool which gives rise to various threats to the computer and often these threats are intentional and developed by people those who are having malicious intention. Before the commencement of Information Technology Act, 2000, the Act which was regulating such crimes was The Indian Penal Code, 1860. But The Indian Penal Code, 1860 was found inadequate to serve and regulate the demands of new crimes that were rising from widespread Internet expansion. Moreover some of the traditional crimes such as fraud, espionage, solicitation, conspiracy, securities etc. are now being performed through Internet which necessitates a new legislation to check them. So this was lead to enactment of I.T Act, 2000 and motive behind this act was prevention and control of cyber crimes. But after commencement of this act, it turned indispensable to institute certain amendments in the various provisions of IPC, 1860 and The Indian Evidence Act, 1872, so that it could meet the prerequisite of the cyber space crimes. The I.T. Act, 2000 is based on UNCITRAL Model on e-commerce, 1996. The methodology used in the research on this study is exploratory-study and case-study approach and input from certain study materials, newspapers and internet.