Sri Lanka gazettes 'Online Safety Bill'

COLOMBO (News 1t); The Sri Lanka Government on Tuesday (19) published via gazette the Online Safety Bill.

According to the gazette, the bill is to to establish the Online Safety Commission and to make provisions to prohibit online communication of certain statements of fact in Sri Lanka.

Earlier, the Department of Government Information said that the draft bill was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on 4th September.

Read the full gazette here.

The Online Safety Bill is to establish the Online Safety Commission; to make provisions to prohibit online communication of certain statements of fact in Sri Lanka; and to prevent the use of online accounts and inauthentic online accounts for prohibited purposes, and other related matters.

Subject to the provisions of section 6, the Commission shall consist of five members appointed by the President and the term of office of a member of the Commission shall be three years from the date of appointment.

As per the Online Safety Bill, the commission members shall have qualifications and experience in one or more of the fields of information technology, law, governance, social services, journalism, science and technology or management.

The Commission will have the power to issue directives to persons, service providers or internet intermediaries, who have published or communicated or whose service has been used to communicate any prohibited statement, requiring them to provide to persons who have been adversely affected by any prohibited statement, an opportunity of responding to such prohibited statement.

The Commission will have the power to issue notices to any internet access service providers or internet intermediary to disable access to an online location which contains a prohibited statement by the end users in Sri Lanka or to remove such prohibited statement from such online location.