ISLAMABAD Dec 08 (TNS): Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) and Bolo Bhi organized the “Reviewing the Right to Privacy in Pakistan Roundtable” at the Islamabad Hotel, Islamabad on Thursday.
The goal of the roundtable was to have a comprehensive and interactive discussion with relevant stakeholders about data protection and the right to privacy in Pakistan. International and national trends and developments in regards to digital rights, freedom of expression online, and data protection measures were discussed at the event.
The conference covered the themes of data protection and privacy on the internet within the Pakistani context through participatory sessions with participants. The first panel, titled “Data Protection and the Open Government Partnership Process”, was moderated by Nighat Dad, and shed light on the commitments made by the Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT), under the Open Government Partnership (OGP) process, to introduce a data protection law in Pakistan. The panelists included Ali Mohyuddin and Ebrar Rashid from NADRA, Arzak Khan, Saad Saleem, the co-founder of Nayatel, Imran Haider from FIA, Natalia Tariq from Open Society Foundations, Saleha Zahid from Bolo Bhi, and Jannat Ali Kalyar from DRF.
In the opinion of Nighat Dad, the Executive Director of Digital Rights Foundation, “if the Government of Pakistan is serious about strengthening cyber security, it is vital that there is stringent and proactive data protection legislation that complements and factors in the right to privacy and freedom of expression of its citizens.”
The second panel, titled “The Right to Privacy through Gendered Lens”, addressed the gendered nature of the right to privacy, with particular focus on the gendered experiences of this right. The panel, moderated by Zoya Rehman, brought together a diverse set of perspectives to discuss the variations as well as overlap of the gendered nature of the privacy discourse within Pakistan. The panelists, which included Khawar Mumtaz, chairperson of NCSW, Shmyla Khan of DRF, Mehlab Jameel, Fatima Anwar from Engage Foundation, and Dr. Safieh Shah, further discussed how privacy from a gender perspective is a vital part of the larger discourse on internet rights.
Khawar Mumtaz said, “there is a need to challenge the manner in which privacy plays out in practice and how it operates with reference to oppressive structures. We need to start thinking about privacy in ways that challenge what constitutes a ‘breach’ and who gets to define it.”
Digital Rights Foundation is a registered research-based advocacy non-governmental organization in Pakistan. Founded by Nighat Dad in 2012, DRF focuses on ICTs to support human rights, inclusiveness, democratic processes, and digital governance. DRF works on issues of online free speech, privacy, data protection and online violence against women.
