Excessively harsh or need of hour? As usual as with everything else in Pakistan, the pundits are divided on the Pakistan Cyber Crime Bill 2015. After in-depth study of this bill, it seems that it will only strengthen virtual moral policing in the country by authorities instead of eliminating Internet crime in Pakistan. The bill is lengthy and full of legal jargon. It seems that they have gone through cyber law books, archaic laws in Western world and then have amalgamated it with the religious restrictions and social taboos of this motherland. This is what this new Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2015 is all about.
There are 5 main points from summary of this new bill:
1) It will be a crime to send text messages or photos to anyone’s email address or phone without the recipient’s consent.
2) The police or FIA or any other agency won’t need a warrant to search, seize or make arrests.
3) Under sections 17 and 18 of the new bill, the political criticism and political expression in the form of analysis, commentary, blogs, cartoons, caricatures and memes has been criminalised. Authorities will decide what is moral and what is immoral.
4) Under section 31, government can block or remove access to any website or online source if it deems it inappropriate.
5) Under section 26, the ISPs, restaurants, malls, hotels, offices, airports bus stations and anywhere with Internet facility will be required to hold data record for 3 months.
IT industry and the online social media users are terming the bill as senseless, draconian, punitive, arbitrary, and utterly far from reality.