=> ISLAMABAD – President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday
ISLAMABAD – President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday promulgated ‘Electronic Crime Ordinance 2007’ in the country aimed at curbing rising cyber terrorism by giving capital punishment and up to seven-year sentence with ten million rupees penalty for cyber crime.
Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Abdul Riar while briefing the media on the Ordinance, said that the law will be affective from December 31, 2007 and with its promulgation Pakistan had become the 42nd country, which had the proper law to prevent the cyber crimes.
The ordinance while carrying 18 different offences will be affective from December 31,2007.
According to the Law, whoever would commit the offence of ‘Cyber Terrorism’ and cause death of any person should be punishable with the death or imprisonment for life and with fine and in any other case, he should be punishable with imprisonment and of either description for a term, which may extend to ten years, or with fine not less than ten million rupees, or with both.
Defining the offender of cyber terrorism, Ordinance said any person group or organisation who, with terrorist intent utilises, accesses or causes to be accessed a computer or computer network or electronic system or electronic device or by any available means, and there by knowingly engaged in or attempted to engage in a terrorist act commits the offence of cyber terrorism.
The expression of Terroristic Intent, used in the definition of the offender, was meant to act with the purpose to alarm, frighten, disrupt, harm, damage; or carry out an act of violence against any segment of the population, the government or the entity associated therewith.
The second offence was ‘Criminal Access’ defined as whoever, intentionally gains unauthorized access to the whole or any part of an electronic system or electronic device with or without infringing security measures, should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine not exceeding than three hundred thousand rupees, or with both.
The third mentioned offence was ‘ Criminal Data Access’ defined as whoever intentionally causes any electronic system or electronic device to perform any function for the purpose of gaining unauthorised access to any data held in any electronic system or device or on obtaining such unauthorized access should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine or with both.
The fourth offence was ‘Data Damage’ defined as whoever with intention to illegal gain or cause harm to the public or any person, damaged any data should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine or with both.
The expression data damage included but not limited to modifying, altering deleting, deterioration, erasing, suppressing, changing location of data or making data temporarily or permanently unavailable, halting electronic system, choking the network or affecting the reliability or usefulness of data.
System Damage was the fifth offence defined as whoever, with intention to cause damage to the public or any person interfered with or interrupted or obstructed the functioning, reliability or usefulness of any electronic system (ES) or electronic device (ED) by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, altering, deteriorating or suppressing any data or service or halting electronic system or choking the network should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine or with both.
Electronic Fraud described as whoever for wrongful gain interfered with or used any data, ES or ED or induced any person to enter into a relationship or with intent to deceive any person, which act or omission was likely to cause damage or harm to that person or any other person should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine or with both.
Electronic Forgery the seventh offence was defined as whoever for wrongful gain interfered with data, ES or ED with intent to cause damage or injury to the public or the any person, or to make any illegal claim or title or cause any person to part with property or to entered into any express or implied contract, or with intact 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 was directly readable and intelligible or not should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, or with fine or with both.
Misuse of Electronic Device and Electronic System defined as whoever produced, possessed, sold, procured, transported, imported, distributed or otherwise made available an electronic system or device, including a computer Programme designed or adapted primarily for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in this Ordinance or a password, access code, by which the whole or any part of an ES or ED was capable of being accessed with the intent that it be used for the purpose of committing any of the offences established under this ordinance, was said to commit offence of misuse of ES or ED. However, whoever committed the offences described in sub-section 1 should be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term, which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
Unauthorized Access to Code defined as whoever disclosed or obtained any password, access as to the code, system design or any other means of gaining access to any ES or ED with intent to obtain wrongful gain, did reverse engineering or caused wrongful cause to any person for any other unlawful purpose should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with both.
Misuse of Encryption was defined as whoever for the purpose of commission for an offence knowingly or willingly encrypted any incriminating communication relating to that crime or incriminating evidence committed the offence of misuse of encryption should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both.
The offence ‘Malicious Code’ described as whoever willfully wrote, offered, made available, distributed or transmitted malicious code through an ED or ES with intent to cause harm to any electronic system or resulting in the corruption, destruction, suppression theft or lost of data would be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both.
Cyber Stalking was defined as whoever with intent to coerced, intimidate and harass any person used computer, computer network, internet, network site, electronic mail, or any other similar means of communication to communicate obscene, vulgar, profane, lewd, lascivious, indecent language picture or image and threaten any illegal or immoral act.
The offender of this crime would be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may be extend to seven years or with fine not exceeding than three hundred thousand rupees, or with both.
Spamming defined as whoever transmitted harmful, fraudulent, misleading, illegal, or unsolicited electronic message in bulk to any person without the express permission of the recipient or caused any ES to show any such message or involved in falsified online user account registration or falsified domain name registration for commercial purpose committed the offence of spamming.
The offender of it in sub-section 1 would be punishable with fine not exceeding fifty thousand rupees. If he committed this offence of spamming for the first time and for every subsequent commission of offence of spamming he would be punished with imprisonment of three months or with fine, or with both.
Spoofing was another offence of the ordinance that was described as whoever established a website, or sent an electronic message with a counterfeit source intended to be believed by the recipient or visitor or its electronic system to be an authentic source with intent to gain unauthorized access or obtained valuable information which later can be used for any unlawful purpose committed the offence of spoofing and whoever would commit spoofing specified in sub-section 1 would be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
Unauthorized Interception was described as whoever without lawful authority intercepted by technical means, transmission of data to, from or with in an electronic system including electromagnetic emissions from an electronic system carrying such data committed the offence of unauthorized interception.
The offender of this crime would described in sub-section (1) would be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine not exceeding five hundred thousand rupees, or with both.
The Ordinance also mentioned Enhanced punishment for offences involving sensitive electronic systems according to that (1) whoever caused criminal access to any sensitive electronic system in the course of the commission of any of the offences established under this Ordinance would, in addition to the punishment prescribed for that offence, be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, or with fine not exceeding one million rupees, or with both.
(2) For the purpose of any prosecution under this section, it would be presumed, until contrary was proved. That the accused had the requisite knowledge that it was a sensitive electronic system.
Of abets, aids or attempt to commit offence was defined as (1) anyone who knowingly and willfully abets the commission of or who aided to commit or did any act preparatory to or in furtherance of the commission of any offence under this Ordinance would be guilty of that offence and would be liable on conviction to the punishment provided for the offence and secondly any person who attempted to commit an offence under this Ordinance would be punished for a term which may extend to one-half of the longest term of imprisonment provided for that offence.
While mentioning other offences it was declared that whoever committed any offence, other than those expressly provided under this Ordinance, with the help of computer, electronic system, electronic device or any other electronic means would be punished, in addition to the punishment provided for that offence, with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine not exceeding two hundred thousand rupees, or with both.
“A corporate body would be held liable for an offence under this Ordinance if the offence was committed on its instructions or for its benefit. The corporate body would be punished with fine not less than one hundred thousand rupees or the amount involved in the offence whichever was the higher: provided that such punishments would not absolve the criminal liability of the natural person who had committed the offence”, Electronic Crime Ordinance defined.
The third chapter of the Ordinance informed that all offences under this Ordinance would be compoundable, non-cognizable and bail able except the offences punishable with imprisonment for seven years or more.
For the prosecution and trial of offences, the seven-member tribunal would take cognizance of and try offences under this Ordinance and in all matters with respect to which no procedure had been provided in this Ordinance or the rules made there under, the provisions of the Code would, mutates and mutandis, apply for the trial.
“All proceedings before the Tribunal would be deemed to be judicial proceedings with in the meanings of section 193 and 228 of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 ( XLV of 1860) and the Tribunal would be deemed to be a Court for the purpose of sections 480 and 482 of the Code”, Ordinance informed.
Chapter four of the Ordinance defined that the Federal government would establish a specialized investigation and prosecution cell with in Federal Investigation Agency to investigate and prosecute the offences under this Ordinance: provided that till such time any agency was so established, the investigation and prosecution of any offence would be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Code: Provided further that any police officer investigating an offence under this Ordinance may seek assistance of any special investigation agency for any technical in put, collection and preservation of evidence.
Electronic Crime Ordinance further informed that the federal government may cooperate with any foreign government, Interpol or any other international agency with whom it had or established reciprocal arrangements for the purpose of investigation or proceedings concerning offences related to electronic system and data, or for the collection of evidence in electronic form of an offence or obtaining expeditious preservation and disclosure of traffic data associated with specified communication or interception of data.
Chapter six of the Ordinance informed about the Information and Communication Technologies Tribunal that as soon as possible after the commencement of this Ordinance, the federal government would, by notification in the official gazette, constitute the Information and Communication Technology Tribunal whose principle seat would be at Islamabad and it would consist of a chairman and as many members as the federal government may determine but not more than seven members.
Source: The Nation
Date:1/11/2008
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