‘PECA 2016 does not include many important aspects of cyber crime’

KARACHI: The Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (PECA) 2016 does not include many important aspects of cyber crime being committed in our country, said Sheikh Sultan Rehman, vice president of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), during an interactive webinar on “Cyber Security: Threats to Digital Pakistan”, organized by the FPCCI.

Sheikh Sultan Rehman underscored firm and timely implementation of PECA 2016 which could reduce the increasing rate of cyber crimes in the country.

He further said that improved infrastructure for cyber security was not only important for financial and social safety of the people, but it was also essential for fighting cyber warfare.

The webinar was attended by Mehmood-ul-Hasan, deputy director at the National Response Centre for Cyber Crime (NR3C), FIA, Bilal Abbasi, director of IT, Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom, M. A. Zaeem, deputy director at the Cyber Crime Wing of FIA, Ammar Jafri, founder president of the Pakistan Information Security Association, Qazi M. Misbah Uddin, CEO of Pak-CERT, Zaheema Iqbal, a cyber security policy researcher at the Bahria University, Mehreen Ilahi, president of Karachi WCCI (East), and Mohsin Sheikh, MD of Trillium Information Security System.

M. A. Zaeem said that increased cyber security was the need of the hour to decrease cyber crime in our country.

Ammar Jafri suggested to the FPCCI to establish an FPCCI-CERT and offered his technological expertise to the business community.

Bilal Abbasi said that the ministry of IT was working on the draft of a personal data protection bill.

Mehmood-ul-Hassan said that implementation of the law was an equal responsibility of public and private sector and events like these would improve coordination between the two sectors.

Zaheema Iqbal highlighted the significance of awareness, regulation and data governance to improve cyber security infrastructure.

Qazi Misbah Uddin recommended penalties on companies with weak information security systems.

Mohsin Sheikh said the country must focus on legislation, regulation and certification to strengthen the information and cyber security infrastructure.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020