Misuse of the Digital Security Act, 2018 in Bangladesh: A Legal Analysis

Abstract

The Digital Security Act 2016 was enacted only to protect the important data of the state of Bangladesh from various types of cyber attacks. The Digital Security Act 2016 was enacted only to protect the important data of the Government of Bangladesh from various types of cyber attacks. In this legal process, the state did not consider the protection of electronic communications and personal information, as well as the freedom of expression online and the privacy of all other basic human rights of all people in the state. In recent years, the Bangladesh government has been abusing freedom of thought, conscience, and gestures to suppress data. Things got worse during the Covid 19 epidemic because of the harassment, detention and arrest of teachers, students, garment workers and human rights activists. The main objective of the Digital Security Act is to "ensure digital security". But the Act does not directly address or analyze what the Digital Security Act actually means. Even all the provisions to ensure digital security are not properly enshrined in this act. Digital security basically refers to the control policy that needs to be adopted through information and communication technology in order to ensure the free exchange of information, confidentiality, accuracy, availability, etc. of all information and data.The Digital Security Act is a law enacted by the Bangladesh government in October 2018. The government claims that this law has been enacted to provide security to the citizens. However this law and some of the provisions within the law are too broad and vague, which has provided enormous punitive power to the law enforcement agencies. For example, one of the provisions enables the law enforcement agencies to seize any equipment, arrest anybody or search any premises without any warrant. The digital security Act has become a weapon of choice for the government and its supporters to silence the citizens and muzzle freedom of expression. The law has a provision which allows the law enforcement agencies to file charges against individuals even before the crime is committed merely on the basis of a suspicion. Besides, there is another provision which allows the supporters of the government and for that matter any individual to file charges or file cases against individuals, even if he ro she is not aggrieved. So this has been used by the supporters of the government over the last three years. That created a culture of fear among anybody.