Senate is the upper house of parliament and it has adopted the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) 2016 and the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology will check the clauses of this bill. PECB has accorded the approval of bill after making some amendments with great concerns and it means that the government will curb the civil liberties and also freedom of speech. The government asks that it wants to use this bill for the protection of the people. This bill will be used against the cyber threats and terrorism. The activists for the digital rights feel that this bill will be helpful for broad range of activities and the government believes that this bill will be used to curb the criminal activities in cyberspace and also to regulate the unregulated social media.

It was the dire need to introduce cybercrime bill as the criminal activities have plagued the society and it has done the privacy breaches, which is now common. In the absence of the cybercrime bill, there was consistent increase in the hate speech and the fraud and forgery activities were also increased. The government has prepared the final draft of the PECB last year and it was rejected by the stakeholders to curb the freedom of expression in the vague language and there were some clashed with other laws in the constitution of the country. The Senate panel made some amendments and they are attempting to safeguard the rights, which are being introduced in the original bill.

There were many problems but we have to see that they have been solved or otherwise. The activists feel that the government is leaving some loopholes in this bill, which will give some space to the criminals. The government has admitted it itself that there are some loopholes in the bill. It is also said that the courts can intervene in the implementation of this bill and it is not the right approach to make such a legislation, which can have far reaching implications to the fundamental rights. The introduction of cybercrime bill can create balance between curbing hate speech and the protecting the civil liberties. Such differences need to be changed and this bill is in the amended form and it is still not fine to control the crime. The parliamentarians should consider the criticism, which is still doing on this bill.