There have been many campaigns lately in support of technology and
e-commerce, all of them arguing that the law is out of date. Most
of them have been well-founded and have helped to lead us to the
comprehensive legal framework for e-commerce that is now in place
in the UK and the European Union.
Anyone looking at this flurry of legislative activity might
conclude that the pre-existing law is fundamentally flawed as far
as e-commerce and technology is concerned. But this was not so, at
least for the majority of UK law.
Even though an Act of Parliament does not contain the word Internet
it can still be applied to the cyber-world. In most cases
pre-existing UK law did work, but nonetheless the new e-commerce
and technology-based laws are clearer and, therefore, provide more
certainty.
As long ago as the Victorian era legislators recognised that Acts
must be ongoing to take account of technological change, rather
than frozen in a meaning appropriate only to the age in which the
law was first passed. Thus, while new law is sometimes needed to
close loopholes created by technological advances, in the main
there is no need to rewrite legislation simply because its
terminology is out of date.
In some cases, however, it is not as simple as looking to existing
laws to ensure that technological advances are included within
their remit. Some new technologies, such as electronic signatures
and biometrics, require new regulatory frameworks to govern their
use as they raise their own, unique, issues.
Alison Welterveden is partner and head of the technology group
at Tite and Lewiswww.titeandlewis.com/
