E-crime bill to be tabled in parliament soon
Computer geeks have found easier ways to make quick buck by hacking into portals and unauthorised systems, not to mention the fact that terrorists too are using Internet and laptop as their most potent tools.
The country’s growing IT-enabled industry direly needs e-crime law, which the cabinet has just passed.
The ministry officials claim that the law is comprehensive in form “covering all possible electronic crimes and balancing concerns of different classes of stakeholders.
Owais Khan Leghari, Minister for IT and Telecom, said the law entails a long list of offences such as criminal access to data or electronic system, data and system damage, unauthorised use of PIN, unauthorised access to code, spreading of computer virus and cyber stalking. The minister claimed that the adoption of cyber crime bill by the federal cabinet is a major step towards ensuring a secure business environment and promotion of e-commerce.
He said the e-crime bill which will be tabled in the parliament very soon, would help draw more business and improve Pakistan’s e-readiness ranking as reflected in indices maintained by various agencies and business journals of the world.
He said the e-crime law would require the internet companies maintain their traffic data for at least six months to enable the agencies to investigate cases involving data stored by them.
He said the government would create special IT tribunals in Islamabad as well as provincial headquarters to investigate and check growing incidents of crimes which remained unpunished for a lack of specific law.
Leghari said the proposed law titled as Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2006 offers penalties ranging from six months imprisonment to capital punishment for 17 types of cyber crimes, including cyber terrorism, hacking of websites and criminal access to secure data.
Source: The News
Date:1/20/2007
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