NAVEED BUTT

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly has passed “The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2016” with a majority vote and established new offences including illegal access of data, interference with data and information system, specialized cyber related electronic forgery, electronic fraud, cyber terrorism, unauthorized interception by civilians, use of malicious code viruses and identity theft.

Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunication Anusha Rehman Khan presented “The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2016” in the House for its passage. The opposition opposed the bill or grounds that it is violative of fundamental rights, freedom of expression and information and made particular reference to including a 10-year-old child in the bill’s ambit.

The Senate already approved the cyber crime bill with 50 amendments in July 29 this year.

The National Assembly also passed “The Private Power and Infrastructure Board (Amendment) Bill, 2016” to process Public Sector Projects for provision of efficient, affordable and sustainable electricity to the citizens of Pakistan and “Pakistan Engineering Council (Amendment) Bill, 2016” to provide legal cover to the Engineer-in-Chief, Pakistan Army on the Governing Body of the Pakistan Engineering Council.

The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2016, provides new investigative powers hitherto unavailable such as search and seizure of digital forensic evidence using technological means, production orders for electronic evidence, electronic evidence preservation orders, partial disclosure of traffic data, real time collection of data under certain circumstances and other enabling powers which are necessary to effectively investigate cyber crime cases.

The introduction of this legislation will effectively prevent cyber crimes and shall also contribute to national security whilst providing and enabling a secure environment or investment in Information Technology, e-commerce and e-payments system. This Bill shall also afford protection from exposing citizens to the unmitigated threats posed by cyber criminals both at home and abroad.

According to clause 10 (c) about “Cyber terrorism” of the Bill, “c) advance the objectives of organisations or individuals or groups proscribed under the law, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to fourteen years or with fine which may extend to fifty million rupees or with both.”

The Clause 9 of the Bill about “Glorification of an offence, says:- “Whoever prepares or disseminates information, through any information system or device, with the intent to glorify an offence relating to terrorism, or any person convicted of a crime relating to terrorism, or activities of proscribed organizations or individuals or groups shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine which may extend to ten million rupees or with both.”

The clause 10A about “Hate speech’ states: “Whoever prepares or disseminates information, through any information system or device, that advances or is likely to advance inter-faith, sectarian or racial hatred, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine or with both.

“Clause 10B. Recruitment, funding and planning of terrorism.- Whoever prepares or disseminates information, through any information system or device, that invites or motivates to fund, or recruits people for terrorism or plans for terrorism shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine or with both.”

The clauses 7 and 8 of the Bill about unauthorized copying or transmission of critical infrastructure data and interference with critical infrastructure information system or data says “whoever with dishonest intention and without authorization copies or otherwise transmits or causes to be transmitted any critical infrastructure data shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine which may extend to five million rupees or with both.

Whoever with dishonest intention interferes with or damages, or causes to be interfered with or damaged, any part or whole of a critical information system, or data, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to seven years or with fine which may extend to ten million rupees or with both.”

According to clauses 6 and 11 of the Bill, “unauthorized access to critical infrastructure information system or data.-Whoever with dishonest intention gains unauthorized access to any critical infrastructure information system or data shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to one million rupees or with both.

Electronic forgery.- (1) “Whoever interferes with or uses any information system, device or data, with the intent to cause damage or injury to the public or to any person, or to make any illegal claim or title or to cause any person to part with property or to enter into any express or implied contract, or with intent to commit fraud by any input, alteration, deletion, or suppression of data, resulting in unauthentic data with the intent that it be considered or acted upon for legal purpose; as if it were authentic, regardless of the fact that the data is directly readable and intelligi1e or not, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine which may extend to two hundred and fifty thousand rupees or with both.

(2) Whoever commits offence under sub-section (1) in relation to a critical infrastructure information system or data shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine which may extend to five million rupees or with both.

There is also punishment of two years or with fine which may extend to Rs 10 million or both in crime electronic fraud including wrongful gain interferes with or uses of any information system, device or data or induces any person to enter into a relationship or deceives any person, which act or omission is likely to cause damage or harm to that person or any other person.”

The clauses 14 and 15 of the Bill described as “unauthorized use of identity information.-“(1) Whoever obtains, sells, possesses, transmits or uses another person’s identity information without authorization shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to five million rupees, or with both.

(2) Any person whose identity information is obtained, sold, possessed, used or transmitted may apply to the Authority for securing, destroying, blocking access or preventing transmission of identity information referred to in sub-section (1) and the Authority on receipt of such application may take such measures as deemed appropriate for securing, destroying or preventing transmission of such identity information.

15. Unauthorized issuance of SIM cards etc.- Whoever sells or otherwise provides subscriber identity module (SIM) card, re-usable identification module (R-IUM) or universal integrated circuit card (UICC) or other module designed for authenticating users to establish connection with the network and to be used in cellular mobile, wireless phone or other digital devices such as tablets, without obtaining and verification of the subscriber’s antecedents in the mode and manner for the time being approved by the Authority shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to five hundred thousand rupees or with both”.

There are also clauses which described the imprisonment of three years or two years or with fine of one million rupees in the crime of tampering with.

About the clause 19A of the Bill about Child pornography.- “(1) Whoever intentionally produces, offers or makes available, distributes or transmits through an information system or procures for himself or for another person or without lawful justification possesses material in an information system, that visually depicts- (a) a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct; (b) a person appearing to be a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct; or (c) realistic images representing a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct; or (d) discloses the identity of the minor, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years, or with fine which may extend to five million rupees or with both.”