Malaysian DSA 1997: A review of some unresolved issues

Abstract

It is widely recognized that electronic commerce can make fundamental changes to the national economic landscape. As with other countries, the prospect of electronic commerce has driven the government to amend existing legislation and enact new laws to deal with emerging legal issues arising from electronic commerce activities. Policy framework and regulations are laid out for the purpose of creating facilitative environment for electronic commerce. For this purpose Malaysia has enacted the Digital Signatures Act in 1997 (DSA) and almost a decade later, the Electronic Commerce Act 2006. This paper aspires to offer some analysis of the Acts in terms of how far they support a conducive legal environment they sought to promote and are sustainable for e commerce development.