Arzak Khan

In a democratic society freedom of expression and information are protected and government lack of concern in protecting them is a serious issue.

Pictures and words are wholly inadequate to understand the complex creations and beauty of our world.

The only way to stop big data from becoming big brother is introduce privacy laws that protect the basic human rights online.

People with fewer economic resources have very limited opportunity for joining the global internet economy.

We should refrain from adopting laws that would allow countries with poor scorecard on human rights to exploit backdoors on techs for silencing dissent.

It is critical that both North and South work collectively for facing the online challenges in defeating the criminals but we also need to ensure that the internet remains a platform for freedom of expression and uncensored information otherwise, it will have a negative impact on social economic development.

The impact of the internet on economic development is shifting in two important directions. First, given the aging population and near-saturated market penetration in the advanced economies, most of the expansion of the internet related market will take place in developing countries like Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Secondly, the globalization of the internet is expected to increase the share of developing countries in the internet economy presenting a historic opportunity for the young and poor in Pakistan to improve their economic condition.

No global corruption scandal can be complete without mentioning Pakistani politicians.

The very success of the internet itself is due to its openness, equality of opportunity and innovation. Platforms like Facebook itself would not have been created if Mr. Mark Zuckerberg was accessing the internet via free basics.

Creating back doors to hack in to secure devices will not only undermine consumer confidence in technology but most importantly empower cyber criminals and totalitarian regimes.

The Nazis destroyed the independence of the press by passing series of draconian laws and it seems we are exactly imitating the same with the freedom of the internet by passing Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill.

We need to move from the existing culture of compliance in cybersecurity to developing a culture of excellence in mitigating Cyber threats.