14-year jail, Rs5m fine for cyber terror

ISLAMABAD: The Cyber Crimes Bill envisages a 14-year imprisonment and Rs5 million for cyber terrorism, and seven-year imprisonment each for campaigning against innocent people on the internet, spreading hate material on the basis of ethnicity, religion and sect or taking part in child pornography, which can also entail a Rs500,000 fine.

A special court will be formed for investigation into cyber crimes in consultation with the high court. 

These are the highlights of the “Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2016” bill that the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication Tuesday unanimously adopted.

This bill was presented in the National Assembly (NA) in April. Opposition parties and rights groups declared it tantamount to denying freedom of expression following which it was sent to the standing committee where some amendments were made to it, enhancing punishments for cyber crimes.

The law will also apply to expatriates and electronic gadgets will be accepted as evidence in a special court. The committee, which met with Shahi Syed in the chair, discussed the bill in detail.

The bill, if passed into law, will criminalise cyber-terrorism with punishment of up to 14 years in prison and Rs5 million in penalties. 

Similarly, child pornography will carry sentences of up to seven years in jail and Rs5 million, with the crimes being non-bailable offences.

The bill also aims to criminalise terrorism on the internet, or raising of funds for terrorist acts online, with sentences of up to seven years in prison.

The chairman said the bill will be handed over to the Senate Secretariat and it is up to Senate to bring the bill on the agenda.

Shahi Syed thanked all the committee members for showing keen interest and said: “The bill had been adopted unanimously due to cooperation of members and the Ministry of Information and Technology and Telecommunication.”

The chairman also thanked and appreciated State Minister for Information Technology Anusha Rehman for extending support to the committee.

Anusha Rehman also thanked the committee members and chairman for unanimously adopting the bill.

The “Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill-2016” was referred by Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbabi to the committee for further consideration.

Under the law, terrorism, electronic fraud, exaggeration of forgery, crimes, hate speeches, pornographic materials about children, illegal access of data (hacking) as well as interference with data and information system (DOS and DDOS attacks) specialised cyber related electronic forgery and electronic fraud etc would be punishable acts.

It will also apply on the people who are engaged in anti-state activities online from their safe havens in other countries. Illegal use of internet data will cost three-year jail and Rs1 million fine. The same penalties are proposed for tampering with mobile phones. 

Data of internet providers will not be shared without court orders. The cyber crime law will not be applied on the print and electronic media. Foreign countries will be accessed to arrest those engaged in anti-state activities from there. 

The bill is likely to be tabled in the Senate in its current session. After approval from there, it will again be tabled in the NA. 

Briefing on different PSDP projects on the NITB, the minister said an internal audit was conducted by the ministry to ascertain the true facts in September 2013 for previous years.

The outcome of the audit revealed that there were probabilities of inefficiency and misappropriation of funds by the employees of the PCB and EGD.

She said financial, administrative and procedural irregularities were reported by the audit.

On the basis of the audit report, she said, the ministry referred the matter to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on January 23 2014.

The minister said around Rs20 billion of Universal Service Funds (USF) was being used for the extension of telecommunication services to un-served areas.

She said two and three G service will be introduced in the remote areas of Balochistan. She said many projects had been launched in the Balochistan province.