ISLAMABAD – Looking up to the concerns of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Information Technology (IT) industry stakeholders, the National Assembly Standing Committee on IT has asked its members to sit with stakeholders from the industry and rectify the errors in the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) 2015.
JAC members were initially stopped from entering parliament premises, but were allowed in on the intervention of PPP MNA Shazia Marri, who walked to the gate and burst at the security officials, saying that parliament was not a bunker and guests invited by committee chairman should be allowed to enter.
What was expected to be a quick, 90-minute hearing took nearly three hours as the committee heard JAC members raise objections to several clauses in the draft bill. Captain Safdar also made State Minister for IT Anusha Rehman miss her Supreme Court appearance to respond to objections raised, which he believed were more important.
The JAC urged the committee to omit sections 9, 15, 18, 22, 29, which criminalize text messaging and emailing without the receiver’s consent. They particularly wanted Section 34 omitted, which the JAC believed, infringed the fundamental rights of citizens, curbed media freedom and gave sweeping powers to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block objectionable content on the Internet, such as criticism on the government.
They also argued that internet service providers such as cafes, offices, universities etc should not be forced to retain data, which would increase their operational costs especially when larger internet service providers were already storing information on their systems.
PPP MNA Shazia Marri also objected to the inclusion of text from Article 19 of the constitution into the PECB 2015, without suggesting how it would guide interpreters of law.
Pakistan Software Houses Association of Pakistan (Pasha) President Jehan Ara feared that the present draft discouraged research and creativity among students and entrepreneurs.
While PTI MNA Amjad Ali Khan, MQM’s Syed Ali Raza Abidi and PML-N’s Khusro Bakhtyar believed that the bill should not infringe upon fundamental rights, other PMLN members – who earlier wanted the draft to be tabled in parliament – did not object to waiting until the law was ‘flawless’.
State Minister for IT Anusha Rehman also appreciated the committee chairman’s softening his stance and said she wanted members to spend more time correcting errors in the law.
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