CONSUMER PROTECTION

1. Justin Apilado Privacy Athena Aherrera Free Speech Zarra Oliquino Content Regulation Marck San Juan Taxation Joannes Asis Banking CONSUMER PROTECTION

2. E-commerce Act • Sec. 33. Penalties • c) Violations of the Consumer Act or Republic Act No. 7394 and other relevant or pertinent laws through transactions covered by or using electronic data messages or electronic documents, shall be penalized with the same penalties as provided in those laws;

3. Consumer Act of the PhilippinesRepublic Act No. 7394

4. Consumer Act of the Philippines • Declaration of Basic Policy -It is the policy of the State to protect the interest of the consumer, promote his general welfare and to establish standards of conduct for business and industry. Towards this end, the State shall implement measures to achieve the following objectives: • a. protection against hazards to health and safety; • b. protection against deceptive, unfair and unconscionable sales acts and practices;

5. Consumer Act of the Philippines • c. provision of information and education to facilitate sound choice and the proper exercise of rights by the consumer; • d. provision of adequate rights and means of redress; and • e. involvement of consumer representatives in the formulation of social and economic policies.

6. Implementing Agencies • Department of Trade and Industry • Department of Health • Department of Agriculture • Department of Education

7. Scope of the Consumer Act • Food • Drugs • Cosmetics • Devices • Hazardous Substances • Weights and Measures – metric system

8. Scope of the Consumer Act • Warranties • Labeling and Packaging • Liability for Products and Services • Advertising • Repair and Service Firms • Consumer Credit Consumption

9. Prohibited Acts • manufacturing, selling, and offering for sale of: • Sub-standard products • Banned products • Adulterated or mislabeled food, cosmetics, and drugs • refusal to permit inspection • counterfeiting of goods and labels • violation of IP rights • use of trade secrets for personal gains

10. Prohibited Acts • introduction of mislabeled or banned hazardous substance • deceptive or unfair sales • faking seals on meters and calibrations of measuring tools • altering instruments of weight and measure • refusal to honor warranty or guarantee issued • mislabeling • false, deceptive, and misleading advertisements • wrong pricing of products • violation of credit transaction policies

11. Penalties Penalties when provisions of the Consumer Act are violated: • Range of Fine: • ₱200 – ₱10 000 • Range of Imprisonment: • 2 months – 5 years

12. Administrative Penalties • Cease and desist order (refrain unfair methods of competition or practice) • Submit report of compliance • Restitution or rescission of contract without damages • Condemnation and seizure of products • Administrative fines: ₱ 500 – ₱300 000 (plus ₱1 000 per day of continuing violation)

13. National Consumer Affairs Council • improve the management, coordination and effectiveness of consumer programs • responsible for the enforcement of consumer-related laws • monitor and evaluate implementation of consumer programs and projects • education and information campaigns for consumers

14. Other Applications of Consumer Protection Online

15. Right to Privacy

16. Internet privacy • Internet privacy consists of privacy over the media of the Internet: the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information.

17. Actions that reveal personal info • Signing up for internet service • Each computer connected to the Internet, including yours, has a unique address, known as an IP address (Internet Protocol address) • Your IP address by itself doesn’t provide personally identifiable information. However, because your ISP knows your address, it is a possible weak link when it comes to protecting your privacy.

18. Actions that reveal personal info • E-mail • Browsing the internet • Browser • Search engines • Cookies • Instant messaging & social networks

19. Actions that reveal personal info • Personal sites and blogs • Domain names • Private info in blogs • Online management of accounts • Online banking

20. Actions that receive info about you • Marketing • Web bugs • Direct marketing • Official use • Court records • Employers • Government • Illegal activity and scams

21. Free Speech

22. "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19

23. Global Internet Liberty Campaign • The Internet is global in its reach and transcends the free flow of information • Governments have imposed controls on the Internet and have enacted laws prohibiting certain content on the Internet and have sought to prosecute users and service providers. • Access control has been adopted through the installation of national "proxy servers" and requirement blocking of targeted web sites.

24. Global Internet Liberty Campaign • They prohibit the discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. • Ensure that personal information generated on the internet for one purpose is not used for an unrelated purpose or disclosed without the person's informed consent and enabling individuals to review personal information on the Internet and to correct inaccurate information.

25. Global Internet Liberty Campaign • promotes democracy • extends government information to the citizens • strengthens civil society through building networks of relationships (e.g. Facebook, Multiply)

26. A few of the early events that signaled the power of the Internet to promote freedom of speech : • Tiananmen. During the Tiananmen Square rebellion in China in 1990, the Internet kept Chinese communities around the world, especially in universities, in touch with the current events through email and the newsgroups, bypassing all government censorship. • Russian Coup. In 1991 a Soviet computer network called Relcom stayed online and bypassed an information blackout to keep Soviet citizens and others around the world in touch with eyewitness accounts and up-to-date information about the attempted communist coup against Mikhail Gorbachev.

27. A few of the early events that signaled the power of the Internet to promote freedom of speech : • Kuwait Invasion. Internet Relay Chat became well-known to the general public around the world in 1991, when traffic skyrocketed as users logged on to get up-to-date information on Iraq's invasion of Baghdad through an Internet link with Kuwait. The links stayed operational for a week after radio and television broadcasts were cut off. • CDA. In 1996 the US Government passed the Communications Decency Act (CDA) prohibiting distribution of adult material over the Internet, even though the law was widely believed to be unenforceable and unconstitutional. This gave birth to a blue ribbon campaign to show support for freedom of speech on the Internet. Many sites placed a black background on their web pages for the first 24 hours after the CDA passed. A few months later a three-judge panel imposed an injunction against the law's enforcement, pending resolution of lawsuits launched by several civil liberties groups, and the law was subsequently found to be unconstitutional.

28. A few of the early events that signaled the power of the Internet to promote freedom of speech : • National Restrictions. In 1996 many countries around the world became frightened of the freedom of speech associated with the Internet. China mandated that Internet users must register with the police. Germany banned access to some adult newsgroups on Compuserve. Saudi Arabia restricted Internet access to universities and hospitals. Singapore mandated that political and religious sites must register with the government. New Zealand courts ruled that computer disks are a type of "publication" that can be censored. None of these efforts had much lasting effect. • Yugoslavia. 1996, a radio station in Yugoslavia bravely exercised their right to freedom of speech and continued to broadcast over the Internet after all other normal broadcasting was shut down by one of the last remaining dictatorial governments in Europe, later overthrown.

29. International Agreements that support free speech • Universal Declaration of Human Rights,10 December 1948 • International Covenant on Civil a Political Rights, 16 December 1966, entry into force 23 March 1976 • Convention on the International Right of Correction, 16 December 1952, entry into force 24 August 1962

30. Content Regulation

31. Online Internet Scheme • protect consumers, particularly children, from exposure to inappropriate or harmful material. • applies to content accessed through the internet, mobile phones and convergent devices, and applies to content delivered through emerging content services such as subscription-based internet portals, chat rooms, live audio-visual streaming, and link services.

32. Filters Advantages : • Password protected. • Hidden, stealthy operation. • Control Internet access by day and time. • Blocks access to over 40,000 active Phishing, Virus, Spyware and potentially fraudulent sites.

33. Filters • Record and view all web sites visited. • Record both sides of chat conversations from AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger • Stealthy - cannot be detected or disabled by unauthorized users. • Parents can override blocked sites, add their own sites to block.

34. Triple x, Internet Content Regulation • Prohibits child pornography • The registry is required to engage independent third parties, such as the Internet Watch Foundation • The registry must develop industry best practices designed to protect children online and empower parents and other users to avoid content they do not wish to see. • The registry must create and support an "International Forum for Online Responsibility,”

35. Facing Facts about Global Governance of Internet Content • It is not self-evident that Internet content regulation should be democratic • Most discussions of inserting “public policy” concerns into Internet content regulation do not take account of the heterogeneous values and institutional deficit at the global level

36. PSHS MIS Policies • ICT facilities and resources of the school must only be used to perform school-related duties • The authority and responsibility to install, upgrade or modify any hardware or software rests solely on the MIS Unit, unless authorized for a specific class activity, otherwise it will be considered as vandalism. • Inserting foreign objects into any equipment in the laboratory shall be considered vandalism and shall be penalized in accordance with the PSHS Code of Conduct. • Copying a computer file that contains another person’s work and submitting it for one’s own credit is considered cheating.

37. PSHS MIS Policy • Use of ICT resources for any activity unrelated or inappropriate to the duties and responsibilities of the scholar shall be prohibited at all times • Accessing, downloading, producing, disseminating or displaying material that could be considered offensive, pornographic, racially abusive, culturally insensitive or libelous in nature is prohibited. • Students shall be given a login account to access their files on the servers • There is no assumption of privacy in the student's files stored within the school's infrastructure.

38. Electronic Commerce Taxation

39. Taxation of E-Commerce • There are no explicit laws stating the specifics of taxation of e-commerce in the Philippines. Nonetheless, a lot of activity in the Web are taxed through existing tax laws. Case in point, sale of goods through the ‘Net are subject to value added tax (VAT). • The government aims to consider e-commerce entities to be no different than their “bricks-and-mortar counterparts.”

40. Taxation of E-Commerce • One of the countless aims of e-commerce taxation is the fact that it should be neutral, fair and simple for the citizen to comprehend; in addition, tax evasion and avoidance becomes easier done through the Internet. • The revisions of the law (which will be made in the near future) is established by the adoption of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program.

41. Taxation of E-Commerce • The familiarity in the e-commerce arena of bigger countries provide further background to the Philippine government in their pursuit of a comprehensive stature on the subject. • Foreign merchants could exploit the domestic market without establishing a physical presence. • The BIR has adopted the following policies in lieu with e-commerce taxation: (refer to next slide)

42. Taxation of E-Commerce • The taxing authority should impose no more tax upon e-commerce transactions than that imposed upon the same activity conducted by conventional means. • All taxation principles that guide the government in relation to conventional commerce should be applied to e-commerce transactions as well. • The BIR will harness the potential of e-commerce in bringing about greater efficiency in raising revenues and an improved taxpayer service.

43. Taxation of E-Commerce • The BIR will rationalize its role in providing an appropriate fiscal environment within which e-commerce may flourish, ensuring that business decisions are influenced by economic considerations rather than by tax considerations. • The tax treatment of e-commerce transactions should have high international acceptance, but it must strike a balance between the fiscal sovereignty of the Philippines and the fair sharing of the tax base, with a view to avoiding double taxation.

44. News clip: Philippine Internet Law Raises Thorny Issues • There is a threat that a large portion of the approved E-Commerce Act of 2000 lead to problems such as taxation and contract law. • The law was signed by former President Joseph Estrada in the wake of the “love bug” virus, believed to have originated in the Philippines. • The law drew attention with its anti-hacking provisions and its aim to make e-commerce easily going in the nation.

45. Philippine Internet Law Raises Thorny Issues (cont’d) • In terms of taxation, the law gives the authority for taxation to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). • The law mapped out intentions to, for instance, “tax Internet commerce and income no more or less than those in the physical world, and prevent double taxation by the Philippines and another nation.”

46. Philippine Internet Law Raises Thorny Issues (cont’d) • Another intention of the law is to carry signatures (used for cyberspace-fueled transactions) go seamless. • Competition will play a big role in tax revenues (on transactions done in the Web), and the certain transacting country’s laws may overstep that of the Philippines’ – this simply means the law has a lot more of revisions to do as the years progress.

47. Electronic Banking

48. Bangko Sentral ng PilipinasCircular No. 542 •  Bank’s Board of Directors and a senior management committee are responsible for developing the bank's e-banking business strategy and establishing an effective management oversight over e-banking services.   • Banks should establish and maintain comprehensive information security program and ensure that they are properly implemented and strictly enforced.

49. Information and Security Program • Identification and assessment of risks associated with e-banking products and services • Identification of risk mitigation actions, including appropriate authentication technology and internal controls • Information disclosure and customer privacy policy • Evaluation of consumer awareness efforts

50. Risk Management and Control Measures • Authentication of E-banking Customers • Account Origination and Customer Verification • Monitoring and Reporting of E-banking Transactions