Tutorial Exercise: Law on PDP and Cybercrime

a. Linda was stunned in front of her PC when she received an electronic mail, in a chain of senders and receivers, telling bad things about herself, her crazy shopping habits, her domestic problems and her involvement in superstitious activities with a bomoh(magician) allegedly for gaining her more wealth and fortunes. She is now thinking to pursue legal actions for this unfavorable email against her. With reference to the above case, explain the meaning of online defamation, and discuss the legal remedies available for Linda.


According to The Electronic Frontier Foundation, defamation is a false and unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to someone's reputation, and published "with fault," meaning as a result of negligence or malice. Libel is a written defamation while slander is a spoken defamation. It is also a false statement, presented as fact either deliberately intended to harm your reputation or as the result of negligence. The elements that must be proved to establish defamation are included

1. a publication to one other than the person defamed;
2. a false statement of fact;
3. that is understood as
a. being of and concerning the plaintiff; and
b. tending to harm the reputation of plaintiff.
4. If the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she must also prove actual malice.

Linda can actually take the case to court, but she has to consult online reputation expert to help her as well. She is actually being protected under the law of defamation which concerned with protecting the reputation of individual, corporation or other legal person from the harm caused by the communication of untrue statements to a third party. All the claims from the email can consider as a publication of permanent form as, according to the Law of Defamation Act 1957, Section (3) For the purpose of the law of libel and slander the broadcasting of words by means of radio communication shall be treated as publication in a permanent form. As for the severance of defences, in Section (19), Whenever in any action of libel the plaintiff sues more than one defendant, whether jointly, severally, or in the alternative, each defendant may file a separate statement of his case and appear at the trial by separate counsel or if he thinks fit, apologize or pay money into court or make other amends, whatever may be the defences set up by his co-defendants, and the plaintiff may accept such apology, money, or other amends and settle or compromise the suit and discontinue the action as between himself and one or more defendants without reference to the other defendants: Provided always that the rights and interests of the other defendant or defendants shall not in any way be prejudiced thereby.


b. Tommy, a Multimedia student at MMU, was caught by University authority after it was found that he had cracked the University’s information system, defaced the front page of University’s official website and stolen a bulk of confidential data regarding students’ academic records. It was also discovered that he had attempted to break several lecturers’ computer system but without avail. On the investigation he said that all his action was just for fun exploring the system’s weaknesses and without any criminal intention. In this case, advise the University regarding Tommy’s liabilities arising from his actions with reference to the law of computer crimes in Malaysia.

Tommy had cracked the University’s information system which can lead him to guilty as base on CCA Section 3(1): A person shall be guilty of an offence if (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer; (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorized; and (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case. If Tommy is guilty under this section, he is liable to a maximum RM 50,000.00 fine or to 5 years imprisonment or to both.

Another wrongful act which Tommy defaced the front page the University’s official website and stolen a bulk of confidential data regarding students’ academic records can actually lead to punishable with a maximum RM 100,000.00 fine or to 7 years imprisonment or to both as according to CCA Section 5(1): A person shall be guilty of an offence if he does any act which he knows will cause unauthorized modification of the contents of any computer. If the act is done with further intention of causing injury, Tommy can be punished up to RM 150,000.00 fine or 10 years imprisonment or both.

Although Tommy said that all his action was just for fun exploring the system’s weaknesses and without any criminal intention. However, base on CCA Section(3), recreational hacking, unauthorized access to computer, computer system and computer network, computer cracking to explore loopholes in the system and system intrusion are the acts which prohibited in the provision as well.