AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE RECOGNITION AND USE OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCIAL AND NON -COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS AND DOCUMENTS, PENALTIES FOR UNLAWFUL USE THEREOF AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
PART I
SHORT TITLE AND DECLARATION OF POLICY
Sec. 1. Short Title. - This Act shall be known as the "Electronic Commerce Act".
Sec. 2. Declaration of Policy. - The State recognizes the vital role of information and communications technology (ICT) in nation-building; the need to create an information-friendly environment which supports and ensures the availability, diversity and affordability of ICT products and services; the primary responsibility of the private sector in contributing investments and services in telecommunications and information technology; the need to develop, with appropriate training programs and institutional policy changes, human resources for the information technology age, a labor force skilled in the use of ICT and a population capable of operating and utilizing electronic appliances and computers; its obligation to facilitate the transfer and promotion of adaptation technology, to ensure network security, connectivity and neutrality of technology for the national benefit; and the need to marshal, organize and deploy national information infrastructures, comprising in both telecommunications network and strategic information services, including their interconnection to the global information networks, with the necessary and appropriate legal, financial, diplomatic and technical framework, systems and facilities.
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE IN GENERAL
Sec. 4. Sphere of Application. This Act shall apply to any kind of data message and electronic document used in the context of commercial and non-commercial activities to include domestic and international dealings, transactions, arrangements, agreements, contracts and exchanges and storage of information.
Sec. 5. Definition of Terms. For the purposes of this Act, the following terms are defined, as follows:
a. Addressee refers to a person who is intended by the originator to receive the electronic data message or electronic document. The term does not include a person acting as an intermediary with respect to that electronic data message or electronic document.
b. Computer refers to any device or apparatus which, by electronic, electro-mechanical or magnetic impulse, or by other means, is capable of receiving, recording, transmitting, storing, processing, retrieving, or producing information, data, figures, symbols or other modes of written expression according to mathematical and logical rules or of performing any one or more of those functions.
c. Electronic Data message refers to information generated, sent, received or stored by electronic, optical or similar means.
d. Information and communication system refers to a system intended for and capable of generating, sending, receiving, storing or otherwise processing electronic data messages or electronic documents and includes the computer system or other similar device by or in which data is recorded or stored and any procedures related to the recording or storage of electronic data message or electronic document.
e. Electronic signature refers to any distinctive mark, characteristic and/or sound in electronic form, representing the identity of a person and attached to or logically associated with the electronic data message or electronic document or any methodology or procedures employed or adopted by a person and executed or adopted by such person with the intention of authenticating or approving an electronic data message or electronic document.
f. Electronic document refers to information or the representation of information, data, figures, symbols or other modes of written expression, described or however represented, by which a right is established or an obligation extinguished, or by which a fact may be proved and affirmed, which is received, recorded, transmitted, stored, processed, retrieved or produced electronically.
g. Electronic key refers to a secret code which secures and defends sensitive information that crosses over public channels into a form decipherable only with a matching electronic key.
h. Intermediary refers to a person who in behalf of another person and with respect to a particular electronic document sends, receives and/or stores or provides other services in respect of that electronic document.
i. Originator refers to a person by whom, or on whose behalf, the electronic document purports to have been created, generated and/or sent . The term does not include a person acting as an intermediary with respect to that electronic document.
j. Service provider refers to a provider of -
(i) On-line services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor, including entities offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for online communications, digital or otherwise, between or among points specified by a user, of electronic documents of the user's choosing; or
(ii) The necessary technical means by which electronic documents of an originator may be stored and made accessible to a designated or undesignated third party;
Such service providers shall have no authority to modify or alter the content of the electronic data message or electronic document received or to make any entry therein on behalf of the originator, addressee or any third party unless specifically authorized to do so, and who shall retain the electronic document in accordance with the specific request or as necessary for the purpose of performing the services it was engaged to perform.
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