Pakistan cabinet has passed a cyber crime law to ensure a secure business environment and promote e-commerce, Information Technology Minister Awais Leghari says. The bill would help draw more business and improve Pakistan's e-readiness ranking as reflected in indices maintained by various agencies, he said in a statement. Leghari said a committee constituted by the prime minister would recommend within a month the need for constitution of a new specialized agency or assigning the task of implementation of the law to any of the existing law-enforcement agencies. The minister said the e-crime law would require the Internet companies to 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 law titled as Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2006, which would be shortly tabled in the parliament, 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. He said the government had followed a thorough consultative process, including study of similar laws being practiced in 42 countries, to firm up the draft bill which after being passed by the legislature, would render reprehensible acts such as criminal intimidation and sexual harassment through internet, financial fraud and identity theft, hacking, illegal access to highly sensitive data and cyber terrorism which was becoming a global phenomenon. The minister said the law would enable the government to seek extradition of foreign nationals through Interpol for their involvement in criminal activities punishable under the law. He said the agencies would be able to seek extradition of foreign nationals residing in countries, which have mutual extradition treatises signed with Pakistan.
