The presentation was made Hina Sarfaraz.

The colloquium started with the looking at Governance of ICT with the definitions:

Defined as Freedom of Expression(FoE): information which might annoy, disturb, terrorise or disgust, or, would engage, educate, inform and uplift.

Role of Government in ensuring FoE and basic right to know is taken as a role of democracies.

According to the Voice and Accountability Index Pakistan stands at 0.33 on an index of 1

Mobile 2.0 engenders Electronic media and telecom

Pakistan has two separate regulatory bodies for the govenance of these issues, PEMRA and PTA, there is a need for a unified body.

Is Freedom od expression a sacred right in Pakistan? It is protected by the Pakistani consitution and Pakistan is a signatory of the International Covenant of Civil and political rights.

Politico-legal landscape:
Blanket bans on internet content, PTA has been used to restrict Freedom of Exprtession.

Mobile 2.0 in Pakistan

Student and youth of BOP form demand for demand for mobile 2.0 services.

The paper goes on to explain that the development of legal definition of cellular networks which has implications on users ability to communicate freely and with anonymity

Net neutrality was another aspect discussed in the paper. This has an impact on Freedom of expression as Neutral pipes ensure free flow of information and the impact of network neutrality regulation and Freedom of expresssion

The paper then discusses the issue of cellular consumer rights.

Privacy and copy right content is the next area discussed. Pakistan Telecommunications Authority is required to protect consumer rights under Section 4(1) and Section 6 of Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organization) Act, 1996; conferring powers and function of the authority to safeguard rights of telecom users.

The constitution of Pakistan protects human dignity in both physical and virtual worlds.[1] Intrusion into individual privacy and personal home is not permitted.

With regards to Mobile content and Freedom of expression and value added services, growth in volume of SMS and MMS jhas grown in 253%. Mobile activism rise through user generated content.

Re. Mobile blogging: Blogs were banned due to defamationary and objectionable content. This was highlighted during the activism by lawyers. Bans were imposed and arrests were made in some instances.

This ban was hugely contested by the youth a severe curb on freedom of expression. “Don’t Block the Blog (DBTB)”: a forum formed by couple of bloggers representing the civil society, media and bloggers, took it on them along with Reportiers Sans Frontiers (RSF) and other related originations to demonstrate civil society’s opposition to the authoritarian curbs by garnering international support.

Short Message Peer-to-Peer (SMPP) along with SIM based SMS service was considered by activists

cyber crime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) which has countervailing powers under the PECO 2007.

Comments:

Q, RS: THe paper looks at the written law and how the law is implemented. What are the key issues that has come up with Mobile 2.0 in Pakistan? How does this map to another country?

A, HS: For an example Mobile towers have been jammed in Pakistan by authorities due to non-compliance of the mobile operators. This was done at the time the movement of re-instating the lawyers.

Q, CW: Was this done with consent of the operators?

A, HS: No it was done without the consent of the operators.

Q, RS: Was there a court case against this?

A, HS: No, after the crisis passed, the network came back on.

Q, RS: Can I ask a Operators to send a group SMS to a Million people?

A, HS: Yes, operators do not ban content unless they are ordered.

Q, RS: Can SMSs be sent Across netowrks?

A, HS: Yes, it can. In obtaining information about this from companies; Telenor was the most transparent in disclosing their company policies.

Q, RS: If this is being permitted what about the privacy rights of the recipients?

A, HS: No singular law spamming Telenor has a Opt in clause while Warid has an Opt out.

Q, HS: How does this affect Freedom of expression?

A, RS: When doing One to many SMSs, it can be prohibited due to political or religious content.

Response: HS: Operators refrain from going that far, in the event anything defamatory against say the president, the operators are required to disclose relevant informtion to the government.

Q, RS: Is there a distinction between privacy or intrusion, by law in Pakistan? There is a fine line between Freedom of expression and intrusion. Is there a special provision in Pakistan to deal with intrusion, other than in terms of interferance with hardware? Are you dealing with this in the paper?

A, HS: Yes it has been dealt with

Comment RS: Have a look at what the law is with wireless technology.

Q, AZ: Can the bulk SMSs be targetted to a particular coverage area?

A, HS: It can be sent to a particular subset.

Q, RS: Have you touched upon twitter given what happened in Iran?

A, HS: The number of Handsets that can support twitter maybe small in Pakistan. But I did touch upon it with regards to case with Pakistan lawyers movement

Q, RS: How was micro-blogging banned in Pakistan?

A, HS: It was done by the intelligence services

Comment, CW: Have a look at twitter in terms of micro-blogging