Amid ongoing digital law reforms, govt proposes new central cybercrime forensics agency

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The government has proposed the National Forensics and Cybercrime Agency (NFCA) to tackle cyber and digital crimes and investigations related to them amid ongoing efforts to change the country’s digital laws, according to a draft law seen by Dawn.com on Thursday.

The development comes amid ongoing efforts to reform the country’s cybercrime laws. A day earlier, newly surfaced proposed changes to the country’s cybercrime laws specified that violations could result in seven years of prison term, with fines hiked up to Rs2 million.

Last week, Dawn reported that the government was planning ‘wholesale’ changes to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (Peca), which would see the formation of a new authority with powers to block online content and access to social media, as well as prosecute those propagating ‘fake news’.

State minister for IT and Telecom Shaza Fatima Khawaja had confirmed the plan to “address concerns regarding misinformation”, saying that the amendments were under review.

Meanwhile, the draft for the NFCA Act, 2024, said it would apply to the whole country and placed the proposed agency under the interior ministry in Islamabad, adding that it could set up its offices in other places in the country.

The draft explained that the NFCA comes as an upgrade to the existing National Forensic Science Authority from a project to a regular department that would act as a central coordinating agency for conventional, digital and cyber forensics across the country.

It defined cybercrime as criminal activities conducted over the internet or using digital technologies that involved the use of computers, networks and electronic devices to commit offences. “Main branches include cyber fraud, hacking, cyber espionage, terrorism, online harassment and cyberbullying, cyber extortion and cyber warfare etc,” the draft said.

The draft also defined deepfakes as audio, video, picture or any other form of fabricated digital media using artificial intelligence deep learning algorithms to impersonate or malign any real or imaginary person

It further said that the NFCA would be the “supreme agency providing intimate conventional, digital and cyber forensics support to Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan as first-tier and to act as a second-tier reexamination agency for all forensics agencies/ labs in the country, including law enforcing agencies”.

It would also establish a law department to “ascertain weakness in the legal system affecting conventional, digital and cyber forensics and propose amendments in laws/devise new laws”.

Another main task of the agency would be to collect conventional, digital and cyber forensics material from crime scenes for examination and to provide opinions to the courts or other authorities.

The draft said the agency would be headed by a director general who must be a citizen with a qualification in cyber security, artificial intelligence, information security, forensics and information technology.

It outlined the proposed agency’s board of governors as the interior minister in the role of chairperson, the interior secretary as vice chairperson, the NFCA director general or director as the secretary and the other members being the chairman of the also proposed Digital Rights Protection Authority; the directors general of the National Cyber Crime & Investigation Authority (which has now been disbanded), Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence and Intelligence Bureau; the police chiefs of Islamabad, AJK and GBl; the law and justice secretary and the additional secretaries of the establishment and finance divisions.

The draft said that no action taken under the proposed act would be called into question in any court and no civil or criminal proceedings would be instituted against anyone, including the government, any provincial government or any local authority, for anything done in good faith or purported to have been done under the act.