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caller kept on calling from different numbers, causingher emotional upset.Aruny trusted her boyfriend enough to speakfreely with him about romance, love and sex. As aresult, Aruny paid a high price for her frankness. Herboyfriend recorded their intimate conversations onhis phone and passed them on to her family througha friend when she refused to marry him.Salma met Shafik while visiting a festival. Theyexchanged phone numbers and developed a relationshipby mobile phone, which later turned intotheir marriage. Shafik took Salma to the house ofhis friend in a ploy to traffic her out of the country.She, however, managed to go to the police stationwith the help of the locals. Following the incident,Salma’s family and society rejected her. She hastaken shelter at the Center for Women and ChildrenStudies at Dhaka University.ConclusionsCivil society organisations need to organise advocacyand campaigns around two issues. One of theseis the right to privacy, which needs to be bolsteredwith the formation of an independent commissionon privacy rights, an amendment of the 2006 ICTAct, and awareness building on the right to information(RTI) and freedom of expression legislationin Bangladesh. On the other hand, we need to bevigilant so that government institutions cannot infringeon the rights to privacy or security of ordinarycitizens and do not use legislative tools to silencedissident voices. This is a delicate balancing act,but civil society needs to be always alert.Recently, the government of Bangladeshamended the 2006 ICT Act by broadening the definitionof cyber crime, as well as establishing tougherpunitive measures for cyber crime offences, allowingpolice to arrest suspects without a warrant,and making cyber crime a non-bailable offence.In a country like Bangladesh, where corruption isrampant, this can very easily become a tool for extortionby different authorities.Some have pointed out that many cyber crimesor digital crimes do not fall under the purview of thislaw. For instance, it does not address any crimescommitted through mobile phones, although manysocial scientists and rights activists have long beenarguing that mobile phones are frequently used forpreliminary introduction, to communicate threats,to take obscene pictures for blackmailing, and toprovide false information for the purposes of fraud,among other offences. Moreover, this law considersemails as evidence, conflicting with the country’sEvidence Act, which does not. As Mustafa Jabbar,president of Bangladesh Computer Samity, hasstressed, “Even the amendments did not addressthese issues.” The ICT capacity of the law enforcementagencies is also in question, as the countrystill lacks a well-equipped IT forensic lab.Actions stepsIn order to facilitate this research project, BytesforallBangladesh together with CNews Magazine, 10Bangladesh Computer Samity 11 and the BangladeshOpen Source Network (BDOSN) 12 organised a roundtableon 12 June 2013 in Dhaka to collect feedbackfrom online or gender rights activists, ICT professionals,social science researchers and journalists.That roundtable provided us with insight and a listof real-life experiences and action items.Everyone agreed that there has been an increasein cyber crimes targeted towards women,but no centralised and organised database is availableto estimate the trend or impact of these crimes.In an interview with the media, Salma Ali, executivedirector of the National Women Lawyers Association,recognised the lack of exact data on peoplewho commit suicide after falling victim to cybercrimes. 13 Therefore there was a suggestion that anopen, online database be created where such informationcould be entered on an ongoing basis, eitherby the victims directly (maintaining anonymity ifnecessary) or by the relevant stakeholders.Many of these incidents of harassment occur ateducational institutions, but female students are oftenunaware of their rights and the actions they cantake. There was a suggestion that educational institutionsprovide such information on a mandatorybasis through their websites and update it regularly.There was also a recommendation that the 2006ICT Act should be updated or separate legislationshould be created from a gender perspective, takinginto account issues such as privacy infringement,online harassment and security issues involvingwomen, as they are the main victims or most vulnerableto such crimes and often they cannot comeout publicly due to social stigma and other forms ofsocial exclusion.It is also important to develop the capacity oflaw enforcement agencies to ensure that they areaware of the necessary legal provisions to deal withsuch issues. There is a cyber crime desk in each policestation of Dhaka city, but hardly any cases arefiled as per the cyber crimes laws in Bangladesh. ■10 www.cnewsvoice.com/pdfnews.php11 www.bcs.org.bd12 bdosn.org13 thenewnationbd.com/newsdetails.aspx?newsid=4026272 / Global Information Society Watch