Govt to introduce law on electronic transaction

Kathmandu April 1- The government will soon enact the Electronic Transaction Ordinance (ETO), which will give legal recognition to electronic records and digital signatures the basic building blocks of electronic transactions.His Majesty's Government (HMG) had on 2061/05/30 enacted the Electronic Transaction Ordinance (ETO) also known in some quarters as Cyber Law of Nepal.In brief ETO provides for the legal recognition of transactions carried out by electronic forms as alternatives to paper-based methods of communication and storage.

For the first time digital signature is being introduced in Nepal and the HMG has recently appointed a Controller of Certification Authority (CCA) and in this regard the CCA office has already started its function.Deepak Rauniar, who has been appointed as the CCA, said that ETO comprises of three significant aspects Legal recognition of electronic records, Regulation of Certification Authorities ('CAs') and Cyber Contravention's.Besides creating the framework and the relevant infrastructure to carry out electronic transaction in Nepal, ETO also seeks to regulate the Internet in some form by making publication of obscene information in electronic form an offence, Rauniar told The Rising Nepal.

Rauniar informed that the ETO also aims to protect enterprises by providing for offences of hacking, tempering data, secrecy violations, furnishing wrong information and furnishing wrong license or digital certificates. He also informed that this ordinance also applies for offence committed outside Nepal and provides powers to confiscate for which HMG is working at its level best.Rauniar focused on the various implications of this ETO, it will foster the initiatives especially with regards to e-governance and e-commerce. This has huge implications in terms of good governance, ICT and to the grass-roots level in Nepal.

Similarly the business impact of ETO are enormous, he said adding that now with the use of digital signature one can even buy the air tickets and even railway ticket in India too by sitting in Nepal and one can clear the fee of their children studying abroad, said Rauniar.But for this one needs the legal certificates issued by the concerned authority and after certification the certificate holder will be given a public and private key, the public number is known to the public but for the secrecy and validity of the transaction the private key is checked.The most important thing regarding the digital signature that an ordinary person needs to understand is that the digital signature is not a scanned or digitized image of the hand written signature, said Rauniar.

Digital signature is a powerful tool which is more secured and provides the full pledge of confidentiality.Dambar Bahadur Khadga, Member, HLCIT, said that it is just the beginning and we have a lot more to do in future and we have very flexible ordinance so we still have many more things to include in future.Khadha also pointed out that the major issue regarding this ETO is the payment gateways, foreign exchange rate and many more related to Automated Clearance Home for which we are working together with the concerned authorities and soon we will come to a conclusion.