Educational institutions need to know cyber laws: Expert

Bangalore, July 10 (UNI) Raising an alarm over the rise in the number of cyber crime cases, a law expert today called upon school and college authorities to be aware of IT laws as they would be held responsible for any crime committed by students using computers and internet facilities provided by the institutions.

Addressing a press conference on cyber laws here, Mr Rahul Sud of Asian School of Cyber Laws (ASCL), Pune, said schools and colleges were increasingly providing their students with computer facilities, labs, e-libraries and internet over LAN. While this had proved useful for students, it also imposed severe civil and criminal liabilities on the college authorities in the event of students misuing computers for cyber crimes.

He said cyber crimes like hacking and publishing of cyber pornography, attracted severe punishment under the Indian IT Act 2000, which carried imprisonment up to five years and a fine of Rs one lakh.

Mr Sud said the Pune-based Association of Indian College Principals (AICP) and ASCL had launched a countrywide programme to make the college and school authorities more aware about the seriousness of the issue.

Free seminars, jointly organised by AICP AND ASCL, would begin simultaneously in the city and Pune from today to assist educational institutions conduct awareness programmes for their students. The seminars would be held in other major cities in future, he added.

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