3. Legal framework underpinning e-government and implications for gender equality and women's empowerment

3.1 Legal basis for e-government

The legal basis for the government e-transformation process was provided by the Electronic Transactions Act, No. 19 of 2006,65 the Financial Regulations No. 447/2010 issued under the Act, the Electronic Transactions (e-Population Register) Regulation No. 1 of 2013, and a series of similar regulations that gave legal effect to other e-government activities including e-Services such as e-Revenue License System. Several other e-laws on computer crimes, evidence, intellectual property, and payment devices fraud66 complement this Act.

Section 10 of the 2006 Electronic Transactions Act states that no one has the right to insist that any government entity “should accept or issue, any document in the form of electronic records or effect any monetary transaction in electronic form”. On the other hand the law is silent on whether citizens have a right to refuse to engage in electronic transactions.

This is cause for some concern as computer literacy is less than 30 percent for both women and men. In this context, any move by a governmental agency to completely replace offline methods of service delivery with digital methods would compromise the rights of citizens who are not digitally literate. However, so far, all government agencies which have opted for digitalized services have continued to make traditional (non-digitalized) options available to citizens. Key stakeholders consulted for this study were of the opinion that as services go online, citizens without the requisite digital literacy skills could seek assistance from the relevant government institution, the Nena Sala, and other public access venues to access such services. Even if there is a further increase in computer/ digital literacy levels of the population, it is incumbent upon the government to devise methods to ensure the inclusion of citizens without digital literacy skills in service delivery.

The Central Bank issued Sri Lanka Mobile Payment Guidelines Nos. 1 and 2 of 2011 regulating two money products. In 2012, it took a step towards financial inclusion of the unbanked by permitting Licensed Service Providers to provide mobile money services to clients who do not have a bank account.67 eZ Cash is reported to have serviced nearly two million customers up to mid-2015, and benefited migrant workers including women migrants.68

If e-government includes citizen participation in governance, then information is essential for such participation. Citizen’s right to information (RTI) and e-government are two sides of the same coin and RTI should have been built into the e-government programme. A draft right to information bill that had been presented in 2004 was passed in a revised form in July 2016 and as of 2016 was awaiting certification by the Speaker.69

3.2 Right to privacy

The vision of the Sri Lankan Government is to make Sri Lanka an e-literate nation; hence the eSri Lanka project aimed to bring the “benefits of ICT to all citizens”. A main component of the project was re-engineering of government, especially in interaction with citizens. Automating government processes and services can be “extremely advantageous in the light of public convenience yet it may entail grave ramifications concerning privacy… as electronic public records become easily accessible to the public”.70

In this context, privacy should be a fundamental right of the people. However, while the Constitution of Sri Lanka (Article 10) guarantees the right to free speech and publication, and the Supreme Court has upheld on several occasions that freedom of expression applies regardless of the mode of expression, which could be interpreted as applying to electronic communications, there is no explicit recognition of the right to personal privacy in the Constitution. The Sri Lankan legislation does not provide for the legal recognition of the right to privacy in any general sense, except in some limited situations which are not sufficiently extensive to cover rapid technological developments.71 There are also no specific laws that protect individual privacy and collection of personal information. However, the Telecommunications Act, No. 27 of 1996 makes the interception of communications (telephone conversations, text messages and emails, as well as audio) and their disclosure an offence. The Act also prohibits extra-judicial surveillance of personal communications. The Computer Crimes Act, No. 24 of 2007 protects computer users from unauthorized access to computers and unlawful interception of data. It also creates a potential threat to privacy by empowering a public officer involved in an investigation to tap any “wire or electronic communication”, or obtain any information from a service provider (with a search warrant from a Magistrate).

3.3 Personal Security and Bodily Integrity

Online violence is a serious impediment to women's access and use of the Internet and by extension, online public services. Even the limited data available on cyber violence in Sri Lanka shows that women’s personal security and bodily integrity are compromised on the Internet. For example, according to the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team (SLCERT), in 2013, females accounted for 30 percent of Facebook users but about 66 percent of the complaints relating to offences committed on social media networks were filed by women.72 SLCERT discontinued the collection of sex disaggregated data after December 2013. The Police Department responsible for the investigation and prosecution of cybercrimes also collects data on cybercrimes but again, there is no sex disaggregation. This is symptomatic of the trivialization of such violence against women.73

Women are subjected to a range of violence online: sexual harassment and abuse; distribution of naked images through web sites, social media platforms, peer to peer networks, SMS and MMS; nuisance calls/obscene images through SMS; and hate speech, blackmail, extortion and ‘sextortion’; commercialization of nude images; and pornography. Online violence such as bullying, harassment and stalking using cloud services are reported to be increasing but tracing and gathering evidence against offenders is now becoming extremely difficult.74 Such online violence denies women the opportunity to use online resources, making them disinclined to use services that could make a positive difference to their lives. The state agencies involved in empowering women are yet to take any meaningful steps to make digital spaces safe for women.


  1. Based on the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on e-Commerce (1996) and the Model Law on e-Signatures (2001).
  2. Computer Crimes Act, No. 24 of 2007; Evidence (Special Provisions) Act, No.14 of 1995; Evidence (Amendment) Act, No 10 of 1998, Evidence (Special Provisions) Act, No.32 of 1999; Intellectual Property Act, No. 36 of 2003; Payment Devices Fraud Act, No. 30 of 2006.
  3. Fernando, Jayantha 2013. E-transactions to m-transactions. Serving the next generation customers. Retrieved from http://www.apbsrilanka.org/articales/25_ann_2013/2013_12_Jayantha%20Fernando.pdf 5th April 2016.
  4. Hathiramani, Jagdish 2015. eZ Cash users to reach 5mln by 2016. Sunday Times May 31, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150531/business-times/ez-cash-users-to-reach-5-mln-by-2016-150883.html. 15th January 2016.
  5. Wijayawardena, W. A. 2016. The RTI Bill: A defeat of public aspirations for transparency in the Central Bank? Colombo Telegraph March 28. Retrieved from https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/rti-bill-a-defeat-of-public-aspirations-for- transparency-in-the-central-bank/ 8th Janauary 2016.
  6. Marsoof, Althaf 2008. Social Science Research Network The Right to Privacy in the Information Era: A South Asian Perspective,’ Scripted December. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1578222 7th February 2016.
  7. Ibid.
  8. Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team 2013. Cyber Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.slcert.gov.lk/cyberGuardian.php#hide2014. 14th January2016.
  9. University Grants Commission, Federation of University Teachers’ Association and Care International. Preventing sexual and gender based violence. Strategies for universities 2015. Retrieved from http://www.ugc.ac.lk/downloads/publications/SGVB.pdf. 5th January 2016.
  10. Stakeholder interview with Harsha Wijayawardhana, a professional from the University of Colombo School of Computing, 4th April 2016.