The new generation of lawyers has more choices other than donning the black cape and gown and arguing cases in the courtrooms.  While litigation lawyers are still out there, there is a new breed that prefers to take up other areas of law practice which includes specializing in environmental law, corporate law, cyber law, IT law, medical law, intellectual property laws, patent laws and income tax laws. As technology takes over tradition law, it is also an era where the law tutor now needs to have the necessary experience and expertise to update the young Turks that are entering the profession. Law as a profession is still an attractive option considering the vast scope of specialization and career prospects that are available. Hence students wishing to have a head start need the valued service of the law tutor.Distance learning has become possible with the help of the cyber world and law tutorials can be processed via distance learning.  It works well when both the student and the law tutor is able to connect at a particular time each day and work on the syllabus.   The online law tutor guide has plenty to offer to the student of law. The student is able to access the right kind of teacher by browsing the website. The websites also have details of the law tutor contacts so there can be one-to-one interactions. Various informative articles, information and study programs give a complete idea how the student can make the best use of the law tutorials online.  If need be they are also able to get the qualified law tutor home for studies.Since there are so many online tutorials that can be accessed the best way for a student to get the right law tutor is to locate a website that offers programs for GCSE, A level, under graduate, postgraduate and professional law qualifications. There will be guidelines for legal advice, career guidance, research and corporate training services. There will be a vast choice of experts like qualified barristers, teachers, lawyers who have academics as their strength to help the students. Legal luminaries who have more than 30 years of experience, enriched knowledge and are apt as law tutors for various subjects are willing to lend a helping hand to encourage the new breed of lawyers. The law tutor knows how to prepare the student for higher studies and a bright career.

What happens to your visualizations and affirmations when you start practicing with alpha mind states, is that your right brain becomes more active.  This is the part of your brain that you need for focused visualizations.  This part of the brain has not had much use since childhood.  Remember when you were free to use your imagination to its fullest?

When you practice your affirmations and visualizations in the alpha state of mind, you are free to use this side of your brain to see, feel,touch and experience your desires on a different level.  A level that your subconscious mind actually believes is real.  Once you reactive those channels of free imagination and focused manifestations, these channels remain open and active.

Once you get this under used channel in your brain functioning at optimal capacity, it continues to stay up and running.  When practicing affirmations and visualization in the alpha state the ability to focus and release hindering blocks becomes stronger.

This is the amazing benefit of studying mind power techniques that occur when using this part of the brain. You are able to program your mind for success.  You are able to attract what you really want while alleviating the mental blocks that keep your dreams from coming true.

There is nothing standing between you and the success you’re trying to achieve.  The missing ingredient in your quest to achieve your dreams is the ability to control the subconscious mind. What the technology enables you to do is to give your subconscious mind new instructions.

This “new” technology is almost 150 years old.  The technology is not new but the applications for this innovative technology include super learning, self enhancement, emotional stability and the ability to reprogram the brain.

This technology is extremely powerful.  The first research was conduced for the military to help soldiers deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD).  However, during the research it was found that by using this technology, there were other benefits such as  increase in memory. increase in the IQ, deeper states of meditation and relaxation.

The biggest overall advantage of this technology for the Law of Attraction practitioners is that using the technology enhances the ability to manifest what they desire in real time.  What you can accomplish with this technology depends on the goals set and the level of expectations.

In a controlled study, (Dr. Siegried) Othmer confirmed that this technology is able to readjust brain frequencies to the perfect frequency that many use for manifestations.  The practitioner is able to achieve deeper levels of mediation, visualize goals, and reprogram the subconscious mind for increased benefits.

Positive affirmations can be programmed into the brain.The process produces desirable neuro-chemicals.  You also experience an increase in blood flow, increased production of new neural pathways, axon and dendrite growth.

These changes in arousal have been measured by free-running EEG.  The whole field of using mind-power to achieve our dreams in still in its infancy in the western world.  This emerging field of knowledge will change the lives of many by giving them the power to activate the law of attraction at will.

 

 

The law of diminishing marginal returns

 

I recently had a bit of a debate with a technology consultant friend who knows I am big on content and detail within project planning and the contracts that support a technology deal.  We found ourselves talking about that principle of economics called the law of diminishing marginal returns.  His point was that for project owners who are in the midst of planning a new project—gathering requirements, fleshing out specifications, polling user preferences, etc.—the law of diminishing marginal returns sets in much earlier than they realize.  The resources spent during the initial planning stages produce some hefty returns.  But soon after, spending the same amount of resources again, and the next time after that, will produce smaller and smaller chunks of benefit.  When you are caught up in a planning process, it is often difficult to identify the point at which your cost-benefit curve has begun to flatten.

 

What my friend was saying seemed plausible, and because I did not have any evidence to the contrary, I just accepted his theory.  Then I thought of a possible consequence of his theory, and I said, “You’re not going to go out and start spreading this thought around the technology community, are you?”

 

Threatened evangelist

 

My fear was this.  Here was I, this evangelist of content and detail within every information technology project, and across the table was a fellow who could undermine the past and future progress of my mission by telling folks they actually need less planning and critical thinking for their technology projects and not more.   Project owners’ planning and thinking are, after all, what generate the content and detail I crave and have come to respect.

 

Well, we talked some more, and my friend added some clarification.  As it turns out, he was suggesting mainly that project owners not waste time and money planning what cannot be planned effectively at a particular point in time.  Made sense.  I was still squirming, but now a bit relieved.

 

Obvious example

 

You have decided to use a staged or iterative approach for your next project.  You will buy some off-the-shelf software and customize it a fair amount.  Phase 1 might involve extending a discrete element of existing functionality and then wiring up to a live database for some testing.

 

In this example, there is really no point to thinking through the details of Phases 2 through 5 or estimating costs within those phases, except in either case at a very high level, because:  1) unless Phase 1 is completed smoothly and with an acceptable cost, you will never get to the subsequent phases; and 2) you have not yet tested your assumptions about costing within Phase 1.  Indeed, you probably chose an iterative approach for this project because of your inability to plan your project effectively from start to finish.   

 

Less obvious examples

           

My friend and I talked some more, and we moved beyond the obvious examples, the ones that are easy to accept.  My natural reaction was to resist any further extension of his theory because I knew he would be cutting closer and closer to the bone, threatening the very foundation of my evangelist mission.  However, sitting before me was a bright person and a clear thinker, with nearly two decades of experience with technology.  I had to listen (nervously).  “When the student is ready to learn, the teacher will appear.”    

 

Requirements gathering – A good thing, no doubt, and something the experts have been encouraging us to do more of over the last ten years.  “Insufficient requirements development cited as leading cause of project failure.”  When it comes to requirements, we have been led to believe that more is not enough.  Surely there is a point at which more requirements are not helpful (and may even be detrimental), but the experts have not told us how to determine just when we have turned the corner.

 

Specifications development – Same story.  Develop specifications thoroughly now or risk project failure.  

 

User preferences – Same story.  Involve your users in your planning process.  Otherwise, “If you build it, they won’t come.” 

 

We have heard so much preaching on these topics that each of us can rattle off a number of clichés for each topic.  The advice has been mostly good, but we are hammered with it by speaker after speaker, in article after article.

 

Reconciliation

 

As much as I resisted the flow of this discussion with my friend, I have to admit that what he was saying made perfect sense to me.  But now I had to find some way to reconcile two divergent concepts:  on the one hand, my long-held belief that more project planning and critical thinking should always be one’s aspiration, and on the other, my realization that you truly can have too much of a good thing.

 

Ultimately, I found the reconciliation I needed with just one insight.  It occurred to me that, with all of the speakers and literature out there telling us to engage in more best practices for our technology projects and more often, we have become conditioned to believe that more is not enough—in fact, because of the nature of the beast, more can never be enough.  We have been doing more and more, and the incremental improvements we have witnessed, together with the new articles we read, encourage us to keep doing more and more.  Of course, our intention is good, but when can we stop doing more?  When should we stop doing more?

 

It’s all relative

 

I think it all boils down to relativity—your relative sophistication as a technology buyer, and the relative nature of your particular project.  If you started heeding the experts’ advice many years ago, your approach to buying technology may be fairly sophisticated by now.  You may be doing an appropriate level of planning for your projects, and maybe you occasionally do too much.  Other organizations are just now opening their eyes to a better way, perhaps prompted by a recent problematic project. 

 

Second, when enough is enough depends on your particular project.  Your goal is to plan effectively and thoroughly for all aspects of your project, but be mindful that your present need or ability to plan certain elements may not yet exist.  Further, even if you have the present need and ability to plan a certain aspect of your project, do not overdo it.  For example, do not continue to add more and more requirements to your requirements basket as if quantity were your only goal.

           

On this last point, remind yourself that requirements, specifications, user preferences, and every other item on your project-planning list have at least one thing in common.  Once you have thought of them and cemented them into some spreadsheet, they have a way of hanging around for the duration of your planning process, and often through completion of your project.  Instead of waiting to whack some of these hangers-on toward the end of a phase or at the end of your project (“backward creep” of scope or deliverables), attempt to prioritize them at an early stage of your project.  You will not even open Requirements Container 2 until the high-priority requirements in Container 1 have been exhausted (satisfied or deliberately discarded).  A prioritization approach could save you time, dollars and other resources.

 

Conclusion

           

For many of us, it may be best not to let go of our conditioned response to project planning and critical thinking—not just yet anyway.  The conditioning represents an overall positive motivation, its underlying purpose is producing results, and our technology procurement process, including its planning element, may still have plenty of room for improvement.  The more sophisticated technology buyers among us might want to put the brakes on the conditioned response a bit. 

 

Regardless of what camp you are in (and until further notice from the experts!), be at least mindful of the fact that there is such a thing as too much project planning.  I, for one, am now a believer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2008 All rights reserved.  Nuckles Law Firm

 

The law of diminishing marginal returns

 

I recently had a bit of a debate with a technology consultant friend who knows I am big on content and detail within project planning and the contracts that support a technology deal.  We found ourselves talking about that principle of economics called the law of diminishing marginal returns.  His point was that for project owners who are in the midst of planning a new project—gathering requirements, fleshing out specifications, polling user preferences, etc.—the law of diminishing marginal returns sets in much earlier than they realize.  The resources spent during the initial planning stages produce some hefty returns.  But soon after, spending the same amount of resources again, and the next time after that, will produce smaller and smaller chunks of benefit.  When you are caught up in a planning process, it is often difficult to identify the point at which your cost-benefit curve has begun to flatten.

 

What my friend was saying seemed plausible, and because I did not have any evidence to the contrary, I just accepted his theory.  Then I thought of a possible consequence of his theory, and I said, “You’re not going to go out and start spreading this thought around the technology community, are you?”

 

Threatened evangelist

 

My fear was this.  Here was I, this evangelist of content and detail within every information technology project, and across the table was a fellow who could undermine the past and future progress of my mission by telling folks they actually need less planning and critical thinking for their technology projects and not more.   Project owners’ planning and thinking are, after all, what generate the content and detail I crave and have come to respect.

 

Well, we talked some more, and my friend added some clarification.  As it turns out, he was suggesting mainly that project owners not waste time and money planning what cannot be planned effectively at a particular point in time.  Made sense.  I was still squirming, but now a bit relieved.

 

Obvious example

 

You have decided to use a staged or iterative approach for your next project.  You will buy some off-the-shelf software and customize it a fair amount.  Phase 1 might involve extending a discrete element of existing functionality and then wiring up to a live database for some testing.

 

In this example, there is really no point to thinking through the details of Phases 2 through 5 or estimating costs within those phases, except in either case at a very high level, because:  1) unless Phase 1 is completed smoothly and with an acceptable cost, you will never get to the subsequent phases; and 2) you have not yet tested your assumptions about costing within Phase 1.  Indeed, you probably chose an iterative approach for this project because of your inability to plan your project effectively from start to finish.   

 

Less obvious examples

           

My friend and I talked some more, and we moved beyond the obvious examples, the ones that are easy to accept.  My natural reaction was to resist any further extension of his theory because I knew he would be cutting closer and closer to the bone, threatening the very foundation of my evangelist mission.  However, sitting before me was a bright person and a clear thinker, with nearly two decades of experience with technology.  I had to listen (nervously).  “When the student is ready to learn, the teacher will appear.”    

 

Requirements gathering – A good thing, no doubt, and something the experts have been encouraging us to do more of over the last ten years.  “Insufficient requirements development cited as leading cause of project failure.”  When it comes to requirements, we have been led to believe that more is not enough.  Surely there is a point at which more requirements are not helpful (and may even be detrimental), but the experts have not told us how to determine just when we have turned the corner.

 

Specifications development – Same story.  Develop specifications thoroughly now or risk project failure.  

 

User preferences – Same story.  Involve your users in your planning process.  Otherwise, “If you build it, they won’t come.” 

 

We have heard so much preaching on these topics that each of us can rattle off a number of clichés for each topic.  The advice has been mostly good, but we are hammered with it by speaker after speaker, in article after article.

 

Reconciliation

 

As much as I resisted the flow of this discussion with my friend, I have to admit that what he was saying made perfect sense to me.  But now I had to find some way to reconcile two divergent concepts:  on the one hand, my long-held belief that more project planning and critical thinking should always be one’s aspiration, and on the other, my realization that you truly can have too much of a good thing.

 

Ultimately, I found the reconciliation I needed with just one insight.  It occurred to me that, with all of the speakers and literature out there telling us to engage in more best practices for our technology projects and more often, we have become conditioned to believe that more is not enough—in fact, because of the nature of the beast, more can never be enough.  We have been doing more and more, and the incremental improvements we have witnessed, together with the new articles we read, encourage us to keep doing more and more.  Of course, our intention is good, but when can we stop doing more?  When should we stop doing more?

 

It’s all relative

 

I think it all boils down to relativity—your relative sophistication as a technology buyer, and the relative nature of your particular project.  If you started heeding the experts’ advice many years ago, your approach to buying technology may be fairly sophisticated by now.  You may be doing an appropriate level of planning for your projects, and maybe you occasionally do too much.  Other organizations are just now opening their eyes to a better way, perhaps prompted by a recent problematic project. 

 

Second, when enough is enough depends on your particular project.  Your goal is to plan effectively and thoroughly for all aspects of your project, but be mindful that your present need or ability to plan certain elements may not yet exist.  Further, even if you have the present need and ability to plan a certain aspect of your project, do not overdo it.  For example, do not continue to add more and more requirements to your requirements basket as if quantity were your only goal.

           

On this last point, remind yourself that requirements, specifications, user preferences, and every other item on your project-planning list have at least one thing in common.  Once you have thought of them and cemented them into some spreadsheet, they have a way of hanging around for the duration of your planning process, and often through completion of your project.  Instead of waiting to whack some of these hangers-on toward the end of a phase or at the end of your project (“backward creep” of scope or deliverables), attempt to prioritize them at an early stage of your project.  You will not even open Requirements Container 2 until the high-priority requirements in Container 1 have been exhausted (satisfied or deliberately discarded).  A prioritization approach could save you time, dollars and other resources.

 

Conclusion

           

For many of us, it may be best not to let go of our conditioned response to project planning and critical thinking—not just yet anyway.  The conditioning represents an overall positive motivation, its underlying purpose is producing results, and our technology procurement process, including its planning element, may still have plenty of room for improvement.  The more sophisticated technology buyers among us might want to put the brakes on the conditioned response a bit. 

 

Regardless of what camp you are in (and until further notice from the experts!), be at least mindful of the fact that there is such a thing as too much project planning.  I, for one, am now a believer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2008 All rights reserved.  Nuckles Law Firm

 

 

In the recent years India has emerged as one of the preferred destinations for offshore business outsourcing. Financial services, educational services, legal services, banking services, healthcare services, marketing services and telecommunication services . The factors that have turned India into one of the hotspots for offshore outsourcing are the educated and unemployed masses, enterprising nature of Indians who have excellent spoken English skills and relatively cheap labour.

In June 2005, one BPO was in the eye of the storm when one of its employees sold personal data belonging to a large number of British nationals to an undercover reporter from the British tabloid ‘The Sun’. The incident sparked off a debate among the offshore industry circles, media and the legal world as to how safe foreign data is in Indian hands. The discussions were also veered towards the need for some kind of protection for personal data in India which is absent currently.

Data Protection Issues have time and again raised concern in the authorities about the cyber extortion, privacy, confidentiality, data protection and national security. With the increasing penetration in the online usage of more and more people towards internet, e-banking, e-shopping etc. the concerns of data protection and related issues are growing day by day.

Privacy is closely connected to Data Protection. An individual’s data like his name address, telephone numbers, profession, family, choices, etc. are often available at various places like schools, colleges, banks, directories, surveys and on various web sites.

Passing on such information to interested parties can lead to intrusion in privacy like incessant marketing calls.

It would be a misnomer to say that India does not have ‘data protection’ legislation at all.

This is factually wrong. The fact is that there exists data protection legislation in India.

The subject matter of data protection and privacy has been dealt within the Information

Technology Act, 2000 but not in an exclusive manner.

Data protection is not a subject in any of the three lists in Schedule VII of the

Constitution of India. But Entry 97 of List 1 states: “any other matter not enumerated in

List II and List III …….” Thus only the Indian Parliament is competent to legislate on

data protection since it can be interpreted as any other matter not enumerated in List II

and List III.

Data protection is, thus, a Central subject and only the Central Government is competent

to frame legislations on issues dealing with data protection. In fact, the Information

Technology Act, 2000,and the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 , enacted by the Indian Parliament are the main legislations in this field, which contains provisions on data protection. There is also a proposed Personal Data Protection Bill, 2006, which deals with the protection of personal data.

THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT, 2000

The Indian Parliament enacted an Act called the Information Technology Act, 2000. It

received the assent of the President on the 9th June, 2000 and is effective from 17th October, 2000. This Act is based on the Resolution A/RES/51/162 adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 30th January, 1997 regarding the Model Law

on Electronic Commerce earlier adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in its twenty-ninth session.

It was a foresight on the part of the Government of India to initiate the entire process of

enacting India’s first ever information technology legislation in the year 1997 itself.

It is significant to note that by enactment of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the

Indian Parliament provided a new legal idiom to data protection and privacy. The main

principles on data protection and privacy enumerated under the Information Technology

Act, 2000 are:

(i) defining ‘data’, ‘computer database’, ‘information’, ‘electronic form’, ‘originator’, ‘addressee’ etc.

(ii) creating civil liability if any person accesses or secures access to computer, computer system or computer network

(iii) creating criminal liability if any person accesses or secures access to computer, computer system or computer network

(iv) declaring any computer, computer system or computer network as a protected system

(v) imposing penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacy

(vi) setting up of hierarchy of regulatory authorities, namely adjudicating officers, the Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal etc.

Further, the Information Technology Act, 2000 defines certain key terms with respect to data protection, like access [S.2 (1)(a)], Computer [S.2 (1)(i)], Computer network [S.2 (1)(j), Computer resource [S.2 (1)(k)], Computer system [S.2 (1)(l)], Computer database

[S.43, Explanation (ii)],Data [S.2 (1)(o)], Electronic form [S.2 (1)(r)], Electronic record

[S.2 (1)(t], Information [S.2 (1)(v)], Intermediary [S.2 (1)(w)], Secure system [S.2(1)(ze)] and Security procedure [S.2 (1)(zf)].

Civil liability in case of data, computer database theft, privacy violation etc.

The Act provides a complete Chapter (Chapter IX) on cyber contraventions, i.e., section

43 (a) – (h) which cover a wide range of cyber contraventions related to unauthorised

access to computer, computer system, computer network or resources.

Section 43 of the Act covers instances such as: (a) computer trespass, violation of privacy

etc. (b) unauthorised digital copying, downloading and extraction of data, computer

database or information;. theft of data held or stored in any media, (c) unauthorised

transmission of data or programme residing within a computer, computer system or

computer network (cookies, spyware, GUID or digital profiling are not legally

permissible), (d) data loss, data corruption etc., (e) computer data/database disruption,

spamming etc., (f) denial of service attacks, data theft, fraud, forgery etc., (g)

unauthorised access to computer data/computer databases and (h) instances of data theft

(passwords, login IDs) etc.

Criminal liability in case of data, computer database theft, privacy violation etc.

The Act also provides a complete Chapter (Chapter XI) on cyber offences, i.e., sections

65-74 which cover a wide range of cyber offences, including offences related to unauthorised alteration, deletion, addition, modification, alteration, destruction, duplication or transmission of data, and computer database.

For example, section 65 [Tampering with computer source documents] of the Act is not

limited to protecting computer source code only, but it also safeguards data and computer

databases; and similarly section 66 [Hacking with Computer System] covers cyber offences related to (a) Illegal access, (b) Illegal interception, (c) Data interference, (d)

System interference, (e) Misuse of devices, etc.

Interestingly, section 72 [Penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacy] is aimed at

public (and private) authorities10, which have been granted power under the Act to secure

access to any electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or

other material information. The idea behind the aforesaid section is that the person who has secured access to any such information shall not take unfair advantage of it by disclosing it to the third party without obtaining the consent of the disclosing party.

INDIAN COPYRIGHT ACT, 1957 protects “Databases” as ‘literary works’ under Section 13 (1) (a) of the Act which says that Copyright shall subsists throughout India in original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works

Copyright Act 1957 – Section 2(6)–Literary work–Compilation of list of clients /customers developed by a person by devoting time, money, labour and skill amounts to a literary work wherein the author has a copyright.

Section 2(o) defines `literary work’ to include (among others) computer programmes, tables and compilations including computer databases.. Under section 14, literary work is one of the items wherein exclusive rights can be claimed so as to amount to copyright. Under Section 17(c) if a work is made in the course of other’s employment under a contract of service or apprenticeship it is the employer who is the first owner of the copyright therein in the absence of any agreement to the contrary.

THE PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION BILL, 2006 : The purpose of this bill is to provide protection of personal data and information of an individual collected for a particular purpose by one organization, and to prevent its usage by other organization for commercial or other purposes and entitle the individual to claim compensation or damages due to disclosure of personal data or information of any individual without his consent and for matters connected with the Act or incidental to the Act.

Section 2 (c) defines “personal data” as information or data which relate to a living individual who can be identified from that information or data whether collected by any Government or any private organization or agency.

The personal data of any person collected for a particular purpose or obtained in connection with any transaction, whether by appropriate Government or by any private organization, shall not be put to processing without the consent of the person concerned. Provided that personal data of any person may be processed for any of the following

purposes:—

(a) the prevention or detection of crime;

(b) the prosecution of offenders; and

(c) the assessment or collection of any tax or duty.

Provided further that no consent of the individual shall be required if the personal data details of the individual are obtained through sources which have been made public.

Provisions contained in this Act are relates to data to be obtained of any person collected by an organization whether government or private, shall not be disclosed to any other organization for the purposes of direct marketing or for any commercial gain and if there is a contravention to this the person shall be entitled to compensation in addition to imprisonment for a term, which may extend to three years or with fine, which may extend upto ten lakh rupees or with both if contravenes or attempts contravene or abets the contravention of any provisions.

If the person committing the contravention is a company, then , every person who, at the time the contravention was committed, was in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of business of the company as well as the company, shall be guilty of the contravention and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly:

Data controllers have been proposed to be appointed to look upon the matters relating to violation of the proposed Act

JUDICIAL APPRAISAL

· In the matter of Himalaya Drug Company V/s. Sumit 2006(32) PTC 112 (DEL), the Delhi High Court proceeded ex-parte against the defendant who admitted to pass a Herbal Data Base as that of plaintiff’s and violated the trade dress. The Delhi High Court not only restrained the defendant by an order of permanent injunction from reproducing, communicating to the public, adopting, using or infringing in any other manner the plaintiff’s Copyright in the Herbal Data Base as well as each Herbal Write-up /Description that comprises the Herbal Data Base, but also awarded punitive damages to the extent of Rs. 8 lacs.

 

· In the recent case of, Daljit Titus, Advocate & Ors. V/s. Alfred A. Adevare & Ors. 2006(32) PTC 609 (DEL), the Delhi High Court protected the works done by the defendant in the plaintiff’s law firm as an employee of the firm for the benefit of clients of the plaintiff under their contract of service.

It observed that the defendants were free to carry on their profession, utilize the skills and information they had mentally retained, but restrained them from using the copied material of the plaintiff in which the plaintiff alone has a right. The defendants were also restrained to utilize the agreements, due diligence reports, list of clients and all such materials which came to their knowledge or have been developed during their relationship with the plaintiff. The above case raise the issue of well drafted contracts before entering into any kind of relationship with the parties. It envisaged the need of the proper clauses to be drafted as to the dealing of Data, Computer Data Base while in relationship or at the termination of such agreements. Para 6.28 of P.Narayanan on Copyright and Industrial Design – (Third Edition) says that “Whenever an employee of a Solicitor firm drafts a document, the employer is the first owner of the Copyright document”, which means that to protect the Data, computer Data Bases of an organization, one needs to have good drafted contracts with an employee so that no dispute arises after the termination of service of an employee.

 

· In Burlington Home Shopping Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Rajnish Chibber, 1995 IVAD (Delhi) the highcourt of delhi observed that”Trade catalogues are generally compilations, and as such are capable of protection as literary works. On similar principles, a computer database, stored on tape, disk or by other electronic means, would also generally be a compilation and capable of protection as a literary work”

· In the recent case of Dr. Harsh Pathak vs Union of India & Ors. , a PIL filed by a lawyer in the supremecourt regarding unsolicited Phone calls, the apex court passed an interim order restricting cellular companies to make promotional calls.

CONCLUSION

The Information Technology Act, 2000 is not data or privacy protection legislation per

se. It does not lay down any specific data protection or privacy principles. The Information Technology Act, 2000 is a generic legislation, which articulates on range of

themes, like digital signatures, public key infrastructure, e-governance, cyber contraventions, cyber offences and confidentiality and privacy. It suffers from a one Act

syndrome. It would be erroneous to compare the Information Technology Act, 2000 provisions with the European Directive on Data Protection (EC/95/46), OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data, 1980, and the Safe Harbor principles of the US.

In fact the Information Technology Act, 2000 deals with the issue of data protection and

privacy in a piecemeal fashion. There is no an actual legal framework in the form of Data

Protection Authority, data quality and proportionality, data transparency etc. which properly addresses and covers data protection issues in accordance with the principles of the EU Directive, OECD Guidelines or Safe Harbor Principles. Accordingly, even if the new proposed amendments to the Information Technology Act, 2000 were adopted, India

would still lack a real legal framework for data protection and privacy.