Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had stated that truancy and gangsterism among students can lead to very serious problems. Of late, cyber cafes have also been mentioned as one of the contributors to negative behaviour among school children.

Cyber cafes give an opportunity for everyone to access computers and the internet but unfortunately this facility is frequently misused.

Young people have been found to use the internet for chatting, surf pornographic websites and play video games with violent and pornographic elements.

In mid-August 2008, Deputy Minister of Housing and Local Government, Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin stated that the ministry has prepared a draft regulation on cyber cafes which was ready to be enforced.

Prior to this, the ministry had issued a guideline on ‘Control of Cyber Business Centres and Cyber Cafes' which clarified that the main activity or core business of the cyber cafes is limited to dissemination and retrieving of information through the internet.

Other conditions stipulated in the guideline is to prohibit students in uniform to enter cyber cafes, the operation time limited to 12 midnight and the premise be open and brightly lit, besides prohibiting dark tinted glass windows.

Regrettably, enforcement of these guidelines is lacking and it is widely misused. The situation has become critical and before it becomes any worse, CAP urges the authorities to conduct operations to curb misuse of cyber cafes and the flouting of law all over the country.

To substantiate these claims, CAP had conducted a simple research by using a study titled ‘Cyber Cafe Facilities and Misconduct among Young People by Zakiyah Jamaluddin from Universiti Malaya for reference.

The study focusing on Penang and Kedah, and involving 230 respondents from the ages of 11 to 18 who frequent cyber cafes showed that these cyber cafes do indeed contribute to social problems amongst the young.

One-hundered and eighty of respondents admitted that they come familiesd with problems. Whilst 160 respondents admitted to smoking and drinking alcohol which are easily available in cyber cafes, 51 admitted to sniffing glue.

Two-hundered and twelve or 92.1% said they had played truant to go to cyber cafes and 161 respondents admitted stealing money from parents and siblings and lying to get money to fund their addiction to cyber cafes.

The proposal to amend by-laws under the Local Government Act 1976 (Act 171) in relation to issue of licences and imposition of conditions on cyber cafes, Police Act 1967 (Act 334) and Children's Act 2001 (Act 611) seems inadequate without the ‘bite' from authorities.

The Malaysian government should emulate Indonesia. It has in place the Electronic Information and Transaction law which prohibits entry of pornographic material through the cyber world.

Once the law is gazetted by the Indonesian parliament, the 230 million population with 26 million internet users and 90 million cellular phone users who have internet access will no longer be able to access pornographic material through the internet.

The law does not only curb dissemination of pornographic material but also covers prevention of cyber crime, cheating and forging of credit cards, online gambling through the internet and protect children from exposure to pornographic sites.

Offenders caught making and disseminating pornographic websites will be fined up to RM400,000 or imprisoned up till six years.

S M Mohamed Idris is the president of the Consumers' Association of Penang