Luddites might not like the Digital Nation Pakistan Bill because it attempts to drag Pakistan into the Digital Age by making e-governance much easier by not just giving every citizen a unique Digital ID (something a CNIC already does), but making that serve as the means by which it will interact with the government. Whereas at present each department has its own digital portal and requires the citizen to register separately, the digital ID would be the same for all departments, which is probably why one of the two new bodies the Bill, the National Digital Commission, includes the CMs, s the provinces loom even larger the 18th Amendment increased their jurisdictions. However, according to a report appearing in this newspaper’s Profit magazine, the real problem appears in the second body, the Pakistan Digital Authority. The NDC will set policy, and the PDA will implement it.
The problem arises because the government, through the PDA, the government will have access to data charting almost every aspect of the lives of all citizens. Matters become a little murkier when one realises that the PDA will probably regulate the Internet. That has long been an ambition of someone or some institution within the state almost as soon as social media showed that the old government control over the media had been smashed forever, and it was now impossible to keep the lid on anything. The excuse has been misinformation, and the attempts include an attempt to promulgate rules controlling social media platforms and to bring social media platforms within the purview of the cybercrime law. It is possible that the Digital Nation Bill is not an attempt to control, merely to regulate, but it should be noted that no strong digital privacy laws have been put in place, or are proposed.
Such laws are so essential that the new media law should not be allowed unless there is strengthening. That some unscrupulous official might be willing to sell some of the data collated is danger enough. There is the even greater danger that the government will be tempted to use information about its opponents for partisan political purposes. It is unfortunate that past governments have not resisted the temptation to misuse laws and regulations meant for entirely different purposes. So far, this government has not given any examples to the sort of self-effacing behaviour needed to make this work in the absence of the necessary legal framework.
