Ensuring Online Signature Lawfulness for Business Termination Contract in the European Union

How to eSign a document: online signature lawfulness for Business Termination Contract in European Union

consumer rights in electronic contracts in Srilanka lessons from European Union and United Kingdom actually this research is based on my impure research I'm doing as I'm doing I'm fill-in faculty of Graduate Studies unicity of Colombo this is the roadmap to my presentation first the background research problem research objectives questions methodology results and discussion and finally conclusion before I explain the background I would like to draw your attention for these two pictures these pictures reveals the difference between expectation and reality in online shopping you may have faced the similar experience like this in your life the product or goods what you have actually received is totally different what you have seen in the website so if you don't have a proper legal remedy in your legal system this kind of situation will lead to a serious violation of your consumer rights so what are the consumer rights in 1962 from a United State President John F Kennedy declared that four basic rights as consumer rights those are right to safety right to be informed right to choose and right to be heard so we know today a consumer can access goods and services by clicking on a single patent office computer however as I mentioned earlier due to the complex nature of the Internet consumers how to pay some vulnerable situations other than the offline consumers in online context therefore it is necessary to safeguard consumer rights in electronic contracts this is my problem statement actually in last decades we know our legislature has enacted several legislations in order to facilitate the e-commerce act in Sri Lanka such as electronic transaction and Computer Crime Act payment devices product and etc however none of these legislation contain any provision with regard to online consumer protection on the other hand the consumer law of the country basically deals with consumer fair saw thority act duct act also do silent about the online consumer protection issues therefore this research want to emphasize this gap and this research investigate the lack of proper legal regime for protecting consumer rights in electronic contracts in sri lanka those are my research objectives first one is to examine the benefits and challenges faced by online consumers then to evaluate the adequacy of existing sri lankan legal framework on online consumer protection third to analyze the key features of online consumer protection mechanism in European Union and United Kingdom jurisdiction finally to recommend law reforms of Sri Lanka legal system those are my research questions what is the rationale for protecting consumer rights in electronic contracts do existing legal framework in Sri Lanka provide an adequate protection for online consumers the how our European Union and United Kingdom jurisdiction safeguard consumer rights in electronic contracts finally what are the reforms that can be suggested for the Sri Lankan legal system in order to enhance the effectiveness of online consumer protection this is my methodology actually this research is a qualitative research I use the comparative analysis between European Union and UK jurisdiction in order to investigate the developments of online consumer protection mechanisms in those countries I use both primary and secondary data as primary sources are used international guidelines EU directives consumer protection and electronic transaction legislations in selected countries and Sri Lanka and second resources are used general articles research papers and statistical reports now I'm moving for the most important part of my presentation the results and discussion first I would like to discuss the benefits and challenges faced by online consumers actually we know due to the flexibility effectiveness time-saving cost effective and many other benefits we really attracted with online shopping and online transaction however it must be noted that online consumers how to faced considerable amount of risk vulnerabilities on in in in during their transaction such as lack of information threat to privacy lack of system security lack of proper dispute resolution mechanism and etc I would like to discuss this further we know in online service providers collect and store vast amount of our personal information this information has enormous economical value also online consumer sighing great danger to steal their confidential information like credit card information another challenge is lack of proper address mechanism because most of these online transactional cross border tank transaction therefore it is revealed that online consumers how to face different challenges other than the offline consumers so here I would like to discuss the international legal framework for online consumer protection here the OECD guideline for consumer protection in the context of electronic commerce is very important it states that consumers who participate in e-commerce should be afforded transparent and effective consumer protection that is not less than the level of protection afforded in other forms of common so it means the OECD guidelines recognized the equal protection for both online as well as offline consumers also the United Nation guideline for consumer protection in 2015 also recognized the same protection in article 63 now I want to discuss the key features of European Union and United Kingdom jurisdiction here the European Union approach is clearly visible in consumer eyes directive in 2011 actually dis Tyriq to consist several progressive provisions with regard to online consumer protection here I have mentioned few provision first one is information requirement we know the here the information ing to the information requirements before the consumer bound by the contract the trader should provide relevant information such as identity of the seller characteristic of the goods geographical address and etc this information requirement make of a balance between consume and the trader second one is extension of cooling-off period enos the CRD has extended the cooling-off period up to 14 days it means within 14 days period consumer can withdraw their contracts if it is not matched with what they what she has ordered or seen in the website another interesting feature of the CRD is it potential to cover contracts for the supply of digital content as we discussed in the previous presentation the digital content here the digital contents mean data store dope produced as digital forms such as computer programs computer games and etc so this provision is one of the emerging provision in this area which is included in the European Union directive the next the United Kingdom approach actually the information requirement of the United Kingdom approach could be found in consumer contracts regulation 2013 and most importantly they have enacted consumer right act in 2015 in order to implement the consumer I'd direct you into their domestic law the second is applicable to all form of commerce contract if it is online offline that is very important point also as discussed in the previous presentation this Act also contain contain the provision with regard to the contract relating to the digital contents also most important another feature is the European a United Kingdom has a separate legislation for data protection Data Protection Act in 1998 this set can cover the whole previously online privacy issues and data protection issues which faced by online consumers based on information a comparative analysis now I want to analyze the you UK jurisdiction with Sri Lankan law actually as I mentioned earlier in Sri Lanka of an information technology law consistory several legislation such as electronic transaction neck Computer Crime Act payment devices proud acting etc on the other hand our consumer consisted mainly based on consumer fierce Authority Act 2003 so when we look at the these provisions in our legislation first the information disclosed or the information requirement in Sri Lanka there is no specific provisions with regard to online information requirement in online contracts however section 24 of the Consumer Affairs Authority makes an obligation to traders to display price lists but that is not directly relevant to this online contracts secondly the cooling-off period actually in Sri Lanka there is no provision with regard to cooling-off period with regard to consumer privacy and data protection issues we know in Sri Lanka we don't have a separate legislation for data protection however section 10 of the computer crime acts deal with unauthorized disclose of information as a computer crime the third one is contract on digital content as I mentioned earlier this feature is one of the emerging or newly introduced feature souls in Sri Lanka law there is no provision in with regard to contracts on digital contains in our IT law or consumer law with regard to dispute resolution in Sri Lanka there is no a provision for online dispute resolution mechanism however ing to Section 32 and 34 of the Consumer Affairs Authority Act it tears it consumers can make a complaint to the Consumer Affairs Council and it can be referred to the magistrate court however we know this kind of traditional redress mechanisms or dispute resolution mechanisms are not very much affect you in online consumer transactions there for a second clue I would like to say the UN UK examples demonstrate that how those countries overcome online consumers violation he shows by enacting strong consumer protection mechanism as the developing country it is necessary to take relevant step to remove this barrier from Sri Lankan e-commerce sector therefore this research suggests to introduce a new legal or policy framework for protecting consumer 18 electronic contracts in Sri Lanka thank you very much