7
Unlike
the offline environment, where consumers enter a store, inspect potential
purchases and judge for themselves the trustworthiness of a seller, the online world does
not provide the same opportunity to use a "buyer's instinct." Rather, many consumers are
forced to proceed on faith, knowing precious little about the seller to whom they are
entrusting their credit card data.
Privacy / consumer protection
We have no specific law protecting privacy in India. The law relating to a banker's secrecy
law has followed English case law. However with e-commerce, such common law seems
manifestly unsuited. The UK for example, has a specific legislation to protect the interests
of individuals with regard to data processing. Some of these legislations can have an
extraterritorial impact. The implementation of the European Union general data protection
directive is likely to have a significant impact on non-member countries. The Directive
restricts companies with low privacy protection from carrying on business within the EU.
Codes of conduct or self-regulation are also employed sometimes
in conjunction with
legislative measures. In the US, the federal government is giving a lot of attention to
personal information and privacy. The OCC has come out with comprehensive directions
to banks to ensure that the privacy of individuals is not violated. Financial institutions have
been warned about "pretext phone calling."55 Financial institutions should also not rely
on Employee discretion in the release of customer financial information but rather should
adopt specific policies and procedures. These institutions
should protect customer
financial information from other types of fraudulent access such as burglary, illegal access
to computer systems and employee bribery.
