Author: Tsakani Stella Rikhotso

The following are some of the legislations that relate to use of emails.

1. Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002

The overall objective of the Act is to enable and facilitate electronic transactions by creating legal certainty around transactions and communications conducted electronically. The Act seeks to address the following policy imperatives:

• bridging the digital divide by developing a national e-strategy for South Africa;
• ensuring legal recognition and functional equivalence between electronic and paper-based transactions;
• promoting public confidence and trust in electronic transactions; and
• providing supervision of certain service providers

1. A) Facilitating electronic transactions

Part 1 provides for the legal recognition of data messages and records. Electronic data will, subject to certain conditions, be permitted to be retained for statutory record retention purposes, will be regarded as being ‘‘in writing’’, and as a true copy of an ‘‘original’’ record, and provision is made for securing proper evidentiary weight of electronic evidence.

Part 2 deals with the rights and obligations that follow from the communication of data messages. The Act also provides for the validity of sending notices and other expressions of intent through data messages.

 

1. B)  Cyber inspectors

Chapter XII of the Act seeks to provide for the Department of Communications to appoint cyber inspectors. The cyber inspectors may monitor Internet web sites in the public domain and are granted powers of search and seizure of “information systems”, subject to obtaining a warrant. The Act’s definition of ‘‘information system’’ means a system for generating, sending, receiving, storing, displaying or otherwise processing data messages and includes the Internet;

Under Section 82 (1) A cyber inspector may, in the performance of his or her functions, at any reasonable time, without prior notice and on the authority of a warrant issued in terms of section 83(1), enter any premises or access an information system that has a bearing on an investigation

[Amongst other things] He is authorised to:

1. Search those premises or that information system;
2. Search any person on those premises if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the person has personal possession of an article, document or record that has a bearing on the investigation;
3. Take extracts from, or make copies of any book, document or record that is on or in the premises or in the information system and that has a bearing on the investigation;
4. Demand the production of and inspect relevant licenses and registration certificates as provided for in any law;
5. Inspect any facilities on the premises which are linked or associated with the information system and which have a bearing on the investigation;

A person who refuses to co-operate or hinders a person conducting a lawful search and seizure in terms of this section is guilty of an offence.

 

1. C) Unsolicited goods, services or communications

Unsolicited emails now have a legal definition and must meet certain requirements.

45(1): Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to consumers, must provide the consumer

(a) With the option to cancel his or her subscription to the mailing list of that person; and

(b) With the identifying particulars of the source from which that person obtained the consumer’s personal information, on request of the consumer.

 

(2) No agreement is concluded where a consumer has failed to respond to an unsolicited communication.

 

(3) Any person who fails to comply with or contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1).

 

(4) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to a person, who has advised the sender that such communications are unwelcome, is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1).

 

In responding to local spam you might find the following template message most useful in getting results.

 

1. D) Sending and receiving emails

The Act sets out rules to provide certainty about:

• when an electronic communication, such as an email or fax, is taken to have been sent and received, and
• where electronic communications are taken to have been sent and received

An email or other electronic communication is taken to have been sent at the time it first enters an information system outside the sender’s control. So if you have an email account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), your email will be taken to have been sent when it first enters your ISP’s system. If you have a direct Internet connection, the email will be taken to have been sent when it first goes to the recipient’s ISP or their own mail server. An email or other electronic communication is taken to have been received:

• if the receiver has designated an information system for receiving emails, when the email first enters that information system, or
• in all other situations, when the email comes to the receiver’s attention

 

 

1. E) Information that must be in paper-based writing

Some communications or transactions that the law requires to be in writing cannot be in electronic form: they must still be on paper. For example:

• notices that are required to be given to the public
• information that is required to be given in writing either in person or by registered post
• wills, affidavits and powers of attorney
• cheques and other negotiable instruments, and bills of lading
• court documents
• documents to do with title to land
• various agreements or notices that are required to be in writing by consumer-protection laws, for example:

• • the “prepossession notice” that a finance company is required to give before it repossesses hire-purchase goods
  • the written agreement that a door-to-door salesperson is required to give

• consent by a psychiatric patient to brain surgery
• search warrants

• Email has become one of the driving forces behind connecting businesses to the Internet. It offers fast, economical transfer of messages anywhere in the world. As local telephone calls are free in most parts of the South Africa, messages destined to long-distance destinations become effectively free to send. Outside of the South Africa, local calls tend to be chargeable; therefore the email system can reduce the telephone bill considerably. The substantial cost-cutting associated with these facts have encouraged many businesses to invest in an implementation of email services.

 

• Email has considerable benefits over traditional paper based memo’s and postal systems:
• Messages can be sent at any time across the world as easily as across the office, to a group of people or a single recipient, without the sender leaving their desk.

 

• Messages can be logged, ensuring some form of record is held, and messages are stored when the recipient is away from their desk.

 

• The recipient can collect their mail when they want, from wherever they are.

 

• Mobile users can collect their mail whilst out visiting customers, or at other locations.

 

• The person you are sending the message to gets it directly, without passing through any third party.

 

• Environmentally friendly! Unless requested, email messages require no paper or resources other than storage space on a computer disk drive.

 

An e-mail address typically has two main parts:

editor@internet-guide.co.uk

• The first field is the user name (editor) which refers to the recipient’s mailbox.

 

• Then there is the sign (@) which is the same in every email address.

 

• Then comes the host name (internet-guide), which can also be called the domain name. This refers to the mail server address, most usually having an individual IP address.

 

• The final part of an email address includes the top-level domain (TLD). For the above address this is ‘co.uk-, which is for commercial sites based in the UK.

The header of an email includes the To: Cc: and Subject: fields. So you enter:

• The name and address of the recipient in the To: field,
• The name and address of anyone who is being copied to in the Cc: field, and
• The subject of the message obviously in the Subject:

The part below the header of the email is called the body, and contains the message itself.

Spelling the correct address is critical with an email. Like with a normal postal letter, if you get the address wrong it won’t go the correct receiver. If you send an email to an address which doesn’t exist the message will come back to you as an Address Unknown error routine.

Email is shorthand term meaning Electronic Mail. Email much the same as a letter, only that it is exchanged in a different way. Electronic mail (email) is the term given to an electronic message, usually a form of simple text message that a user types at a computer system and is transmitted over some form of computer network to another user, who can read it. Computers use the TCP/IP protocol suite to send email messages in the form of packets. Microsoft outlook allows one to send and receive emails.