Pakistan's Prevention of electronic crimes bill

[Safriz]

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly’s Select Committee has invited all
stakeholders on November 5 to discuss ‘Prevention of Electronic Crime
Bill, 2010’ so as to establish a proper and comprehensive mechanism
for investigation, prosecution and trial of electronic crimes and people
involved in it. A wide-array of new and complex Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) related crimes are not covered under any of the
existing legislation; therefore, to counter the spread of electronic
crimes, there is an urgent need for having a legislation for prevention
of electronic crimes in the Country to check electronic crimes ranging
from damage to data and electronic system, electronic fraud and forgery, unauthorized access to code and misuse of encryption, cyber
stalking, spamming, spoofing, unauthorized interception and cyber
terrorism. This legislation would also build confidence of Bankers and their
customers in electronic transactions which consequently will boost e-
Banking and e-Commerce in Pakistan. The Committee met with Khawaja Sohail Mansoor in the chair at
Parliament House on Monday. MNAs Anusha Rehman Khan Advocate,
Palwasha Khan, Nosheen Saeed and other officials of Ministry of
Information Technology attended the meeting. The Committee expressed displeasure that Ministry of IT was unable to
complete the consultation process on “The Prevention of Electronic
Crime Bill, 2010” despite lapse of considerable period and directed that
the Ministry may expedite the process of consultation, write letter to
all stakeholders to furnish their comments within two weeks. The
Committee directed the Ministry, Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other stakeholders of private companies to coordinate and consult
with each other for preparing and discussing a new draft of the Bill
before November 5, 2012. The Committee also expressed displeasure over the absence of
representative of NAB, as their presence was indispensable to finalize
the proposals of the subject Bill. The Committee directed that FIA may
submit its comments on the proposed legislation within seven days. While discussing the Bill, the members said that Federal Investigation
Agency (FIA) should not only give blank check while dealing matters
related to electronic crimes. They said that the FIA does not have any
latest technology to investigate electronic crimes. Anusha Rehman said that the concerned Ministry should advertise in
national newspapers to seek public proposals on the draft of ‘Electronic
Crime Bill, 2010’. She said that in this regard, the Ministry should also
put a new draft of the bill on its website for seeking recommendations
and proposals of general masses. Anusha said that the Ministry should
engage one or two ‘in-house counsels’ who should have better know how of the technology so that they could watch the interests of public
sector for preparing the draft of the new peace of legislation. He said
that the Ministry would write letters to all stockholders to get-together
for consulting and discussing the draft Bill before the next meeting of
the Committee. After passage of the legislation, Pakistan would be able to take
another step further towards paper free economy and to build
confidence in the society to accept whole-heartedly Information and
Communication Technologies in their daily lives. The purpose of the Bill
is also to provide security, safety and protection to every segment of
the society that use or deals with IT and telecommunication.