No. 33
5
Electronic Transactions
PART I__PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
1. This Act may be cited as the Electronic Transactions and
Cyber Security Act, 2016, and shall come into operation on such
date as the Minister may appoint, by notice published in the Gazette.
2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires__
“Authority” means the Malawi Communications Regulatory
Authority established under section 3 of the Communications
Act;
“CCTLD” means the Country Code Top Level Domain which
is at the top level of the internet domain name, system assigned
according to the two letter codes in the international standards
ISO3166–1 by ICANN;
“certification authority” means a trusted third party
organization or company licensed or authorized by the Authority
to issue digital certificates used to create digital signatures and
public-private key pairs;
“child pornography” means visual and pornographic material
that depicts, presents or represents a person under the age of
eighteen engaged in sexually explicit conduct or an image
representing a person under the age of eighteen engaged in
sexually explicit conduct;
“comparative advertising” means any advertising which
explicitly or impliedly identifies a competitor, or goods or
services offered by a competitor;
“computer system” means a device or a group of interconnected or related devices, one or more of which performs automatic
processing of data pursuant to a program;
“consumer” means any person who enters or intends to enter
into a contract by electronic means with a supplier as the end-user
of the goods or services offered by the supplier and acts, for that
purpose, outside his trade, business or profession;
“content provider” means a person or organization who
supplies information for use on a website or an electronic media
platform;
“critical data” means data which is declared by the Minister in
accordance with this Act, to be of importance to the protection of
national security of the Republic or the economic and socio well
being of its citizens;
“cryptography “ means the method of storing and transmitting
data by transferring it into unreadable format so that only those
for whom it is intended can process and read it;
Short title and
commencement
Interpretation
Cap 68:01