Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill: National Assembly body seeks recommendations

The Select Committee of the National Assembly on Friday directed different stakeholders related to IT industry and security agencies to submit their detailed recommendations on the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2010 in the next meeting.
A meeting of the Select Committee of the National Assembly was held on Friday at the Parliament House that took up the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill of 2010. Khawaja Sohail Mansoor presided over the meeting and Nosheen Saeed, Pervez Khan, Anusha Rahman Khan Advocate, senior officials of Ministry of Information Technology, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and representatives of the different cellular companies attended the meeting. Khawaja Sohail directed officials of Ministry of Information Technology, PTA, FIA and representatives of cellular companies to hold a joint meeting and submit their recommendations about the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2010 in the next meeting.
MNA Anusha Rahman said that cyber crime is more harmful as compared to other crimes of heinous nature and they become more dangerous in the absence of relevant laws. "There is dire need to formulate a law which plays a vital role in checking electronic crimes as well as serve the interest of the country", she said.
Project Director of National Response Center for Cyber Crime of FIA, Shahid Nadeem Baloch said that cyber crimes are very serious and harmful they have no boundary. "Laws related to cyber crimes should be promulgated and implemented immediately to control all electronic crimes", he said.
Kamran Ali member PTA said that under article 89(2) of the constitution the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance, 2007, was promulgated with a view to take cognisance of Electronic Crimes in December 2007. Subsequently, the ordinance was re-promulgated in May 2008 and February 2009. The prevention of Electronic Crime ordinance was lastly re-promulgated by the President with effect from July 4, 2009, he said.
He said that the ordinance was under consideration of National Assembly Standing Committee on IT and was cleared by the committee on July 8, 2009, for placing before the National Assembly. The draft bill was included in the agenda of 17 session of the National Assembly held on November 5, 2009, but it could not be taken up in the proceeding. Subsequently the Bill was referred to the select committee of the National Assembly, he said.
The draft Bill emphasised that legislation should be promulgated with a focus on introducing a range of offences including unauthorised access to data, unauthorised access with an intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences, data damage, electronic system damage and electronic frauds. It also recommended including other offences such as electronic forgery, hacking on electronic system or electronic devices, publishing of obscene information in electronic form, malicious code, cyber stalking, spamming, spoofing, unauthorised interception and cyber-terrorism. The draft Bill also emphasised that the Federal Government should establish a specialised investigation and prosecution cell within the FIA to investigate and prosecute the offence under the ordinance.