Data Theft & Privacy-Related Cyber Offences
Unauthorized copying or transmission of data is addressed in PECA section 4. Broader privacy harms may also engage other PECA provisions or sectoral rules. This page stays within verified PECA anchors and does not invent a general data-protection statute summary.
Scope note
If your matter involves leaked intimate images, also review the unauthorized-images topic and PECA sections 20–21 as applicable. Corporate data breaches may involve additional regulatory duties outside PECA.
Applicable PECA provisions
Links open LawHub’s National corpus text for PECA 2016. Read the full section before relying on a short label.
Evidence checklist
- What data was taken and from which system
- How you discovered the leak
- Any marketplace posts offering the data
Practical next steps
- Contain access and preserve forensic images if professionally advised.
- Notify affected users/customers where legally required by other regimes.
- File an official complaint with a clear data inventory.
Related cybercrime topics
Find a cyber crime lawyer
Directory results only include advocates who self-reported Cyber Crime & Online Fraud (or the broader Cyber / Technology Law tag). LawHub never infers specialization from names, bios, or cities.
Sources & provenance
- The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (Pakistan Code consolidation) — Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of Pakistan (Pakistan Code). National corpus consolidation_date 2025-02-07; source_id pakistancode-peca-2016.
- Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act No. II of 2025) — Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) / Senate Secretariat gazette publication. Presidential assent and Gazette Extra. publication 29 January 2025; [94(2025)/Ex. Gaz.].
- NCCIA online complaint portal — National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (complaint.nccia.gov.pk). Host complaint.nccia.gov.pk resolves on the public DNS (Cloudflare). Bot fetches may receive HTTP 403; users should open the official domain in a browser and follow current on-site instructions.