The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) has received harsh criticism inside and outside of Pakistan since its radical re-drafting in April of this year. A coalition of Pakistan’s leading online rights groups and businesses warned the current version, written with no input from legal experts or technologists, would “adversely impact the IT industry…. and [the] constitutional rights and safeguards guaranteed to citizens”. Human Rights Watch went further, saying it constitutes “clear and present danger to human rights”. But it took one of Pakistan’s leading legal experts on computer crime jurisprudence, Zahid Jamil, to call the bill “by far the worst piece of cybercrime legislation in the world.” A close look at the latest text, due to presented for a vote in Pakistan’s National Assembly soon, demonstrates just why the bill has everyone so worried. Originally introduced in January 2015, the PECB was ostensibly…
↧