1. Introduction:
The rapid expansion of the internet, social media, and digital communication has created new avenues for committing offences directly against individuals.
“New technologies create new criminal opportunities but few new types of crime.”
— Encyclopedia Britannica, “Cybercrime”
Offences against persons in cyberspace are wrongful acts committed through computers, mobile devices, social media platforms, electronic communications or other information systems that injure a person’s reputation, privacy, dignity, identity, safety, or psychological well-being. In Pakistan, many such offences are specifically regulated by the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA), as subsequently amended. PECA also expressly recognizes that an offence cannot lose its legal character merely because it was committed through an information system, while the Pakistan Penal Code continues to apply where its provisions are not inconsistent with PECA.
2. Meaning of Offences against Persons in Cyberspace:
An offence against a person in cyberspace occurs where digital technology is used as the means or environment for targeting an individual. The protected interests may include:
- dignity and reputation;
- privacy;
- personal identity and information;
- freedom from harassment and intimidation;
- sexual dignity and modesty;
- safety of children;
- freedom from stalking, coercion and exploitation.
Thus, unlike purely technical cyber offences such as hacking a computer system, these offences have a human victim as their principal target.
3. Nature of Cyber Offences Against Persons:
Cyber offences against persons may broadly be divided into two categories, depending upon the role played by technology. In some offences, cyberspace merely provides a new medium for committing an already familiar wrong; in others, digital technology creates new forms, methods, or dimensions of offending that could not exist, or could not operate with the same scale and persistence, in the physical world.
i. Cyber enabled traditional offences:
These are offences that existed before the advent of the internet but are now committed, facilitated, or amplified through digital means. The underlying harm remains essentially traditional, while technology changes the manner in which the offence is carried out. Examples include harassment, intimidation, stalking, defamation, fraud, and sexual blackmail conducted through electronic communications or online platforms.
“Those traditional crimes in which IT-systems were used in the commission of the crime are known as cyber-enabled crimes.”
— Weulen Kranenbarg et al., “Cyber-Offending and Traditional
Offending over the Life-Course” (2018)
ii. Distinctively cyber based offences:
These offences arise from the capabilities of digital technology and involve forms of offending that either did not previously exist in the same form or have acquired substantially new characteristics in cyberspace. Examples include misuse of digital credentials for identity theft, online circulation of intimate material, creation and dissemination of sexually explicit manipulated images, persistent cyberstalking through electronic monitoring, and online grooming through digital platforms.
4. Major Examples of Offences Against Persons in Cyberspace:
i. Unauthorised Use of Identity Information (Section 16 PECA):
Obtaining, selling, possessing, transmitting, or using another person’s identity information without authority constitutes an offence under section 16 of PECA 2016. For example, a person obtains another individual’s CNIC details and photographs and uses them to create a fake account or impersonate that person online.
ii. Offences Against the Dignity of a Natural Person (Section 20 PECA):
Section 20 of the PECA Act 2016 addresses the intentional public transmission or display, through an information system, of information known to be false that intimidates or harms a person’s reputation or privacy. For example, a person knowingly publishes fabricated allegations about another individual on social media to damage that individual’s reputation.
iii. Offences Against Modesty (Section 21 PECA):
Section 21 of the PECA Act 2016 covers, among other things:
- placing a person’s face over sexually explicit material;
- displaying sexually explicit images or videos involving a person;
- threatening a person with sexual material;
- Inducing someone into sexually explicit conduct, where the information system is used for purposes such as harming reputation, revenge, or blackmail.
For example, X creates a manipulated sexually explicit image using Y’s photograph and threatens to circulate it unless Y complies with X’s demands.
iv. Cyberstalking (Section 24 PECA):
Cyberstalking involves using the internet or electronic communication with the intention of coercing, intimidating or harassing another person. It includes repeatedly contacting a person despite clear disinterest, monitoring someone’s electronic communications, spying in a manner that creates serious alarm or distress, or distributing a person’s photograph or video without consent in a harmful manner. For example, after being told to stop, A repeatedly messages B from different accounts, monitors B’s online activity, and continuously follows B’s social media presence.
v. Cyberbullying (Section 24A PECA):
Cyberbullying involves electronic messages, photographs, or videos sent or posted through social media platforms, chat rooms, blogs, or instant messaging with the intention of harassing, threatening, or targeting another person. The provision contains specific protection concerning child cyberbullying. For example, students repeatedly post humiliating photographs and threatening messages about another student in an online group.
vi. Online Grooming and Cyber Enticement of Minors (Section 22A PECA):
Section 22A of the PECA Act 2016 criminalizes intentionally developing or attempting to develop a relationship of trust with a minor through digital communications for purposes connected with sexual abuse or sexual content. For example, an adult creates a false online profile, befriends a child, and gradually attempts to persuade the child to provide sexual material.
5. Difference Between Cyber Offences Against Persons and Traditional Crimes:
i. Mode of Commission
Cyber offences are committed through computers, smartphones, social-media platforms, electronic communication systems, networks or other digital technologies. The information system itself becomes the principal medium through which the offender targets the victim.
Traditional offences are generally committed through physical acts, face-to-face interaction, spoken communication, written documents or other conventional means. Digital technology is not ordinarily essential to the commission of the offence.
ii. Physical Presence
Cyber offences can be committed without any physical contact between the offender and the victim. A person may harass, threaten, stalk, impersonate, or defame another individual while being located hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.
Traditional offences often involve some degree of physical proximity or direct interaction between the offender and the victim, particularly in offences such as assault, physical stalking, intimidation or trespass.
iii. Geographical Reach
Cyber offences are inherently capable of crossing geographical and jurisdictional boundaries. An offender located in one city or country may target a victim situated in another jurisdiction almost instantaneously through the internet.
Traditional offences are usually connected with a specific physical place where the criminal act occurs. Consequently, territorial jurisdiction is ordinarily easier to identify in comparison with offences committed through cyberspace.
iv. Identity and Anonymity of the Offender
Cyber offenders may conceal their real identity by using fake profiles, anonymous accounts, false email addresses, virtual identities or other technological methods. This anonymity can make identification and investigation considerably more difficult.
In traditional crimes, the offender is comparatively more likely to be physically present or directly observed by the victim, witnesses or surveillance systems, which may make identification relatively easier.
v. Speed and Scale of Harm
Cyber offences can cause harm on an exceptionally large scale within a very short period. A defamatory post, private photograph or manipulated video may be shared with thousands of users within minutes and may continue circulating beyond the offender’s original control.
Traditional offences generally have a more limited immediate reach. Although they may cause serious harm, their effects ordinarily do not spread among a vast audience with the same speed and ease as digital content.
vi. Permanence of Harm
The consequences of cyber offences may persist for a long period because digital information can be copied, downloaded, stored, reposted and redistributed repeatedly. Even after the original content is removed, duplicate copies may continue to exist online.
The harmful act in a traditional offence may be more confined in time and place. Although its consequences can certainly be permanent, the offending material itself is generally not capable of unlimited digital reproduction and circulation.
vii. Nature of Evidence
Investigation of cyber offences primarily depends upon digital evidence, including electronic messages, IP records, metadata, device information, account records, electronic logs and other computer generated data. Digital forensic techniques therefore play an important role in investigation and prosecution.
Traditional crimes commonly rely upon physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, documentary evidence, medical evidence, fingerprints and other conventional forms of proof, although electronic evidence may also supplement such investigations.
viii. Continuous Access to the Victim
Cyberspace allows an offender to target a victim continuously through messages, social media accounts, emails, and other online platforms. The victim may therefore experience harassment or intimidation even while remaining inside his or her home.
Traditional offences normally require greater physical access to the victim. Physical separation between the offender and the victim may therefore reduce the offender’s immediate ability to continue the offending conduct.
ix. Reproduction and Dissemination
Digital material can be reproduced indefinitely at negligible cost. Once harmful information, images or videos are uploaded online, numerous users may copy and redistribute them, multiplying the original harm.
Reproduction of harmful physical material ordinarily requires additional effort, resources, and physical distribution. Its dissemination is therefore generally slower and more restricted.
x. Investigative Complexity
Cyber offences may involve anonymous users, encrypted communications, foreign servers, multiple jurisdictions, and rapidly changing technologies. Their investigation therefore often requires specialized technical expertise and digital forensic procedures.
Traditional offences usually involve a more clearly identifiable physical crime scene, witnesses, and tangible evidence. Although their investigation may also be complex, they generally do not involve the same technological and cross-border challenges as cybercrime.
6. Illustrative Comparison:
Traditional Stalking vs Cyberstalking
Traditional:
A repeatedly follows B physically from home to university.
Cyber:
A repeatedly contacts B through different social media accounts, monitors B’s online activity, and distributes B’s photographs without consent.
Traditional Defamation vs Online Reputation Harm
Traditional:
A makes a defamatory allegation about B before a limited gathering.
Cyber:
A publishes false material about B on a public platform where it can be viewed, copied, and forwarded by thousands of users. The nature of reputational harm is similar, but cyberspace substantially increases its potential speed, permanence, and audience.
Traditional Impersonation vs Digital Identity Misuse:
Traditional:
A personally pretends to be B before another person.
Cyber:
A obtains B’s digital identity information, creates accounts in B’s name and communicates with numerous people while pretending to be B.
7. Special Characteristics That Make Cyber Offences More Complex:
Cyber offences against persons have several distinctive features:
- Anonymity: Offenders can conceal their real identities behind false profiles.
- Borderless character: An offender may act from one country while the victim is located in another.
- Viral dissemination: Harmful content can be redistributed by countless users.
- Digital permanence: Removal from one platform does not necessarily eliminate copies elsewhere.
- Technological manipulation: Images, recordings and videos may be altered or artificially generated.
- Continuous accessibility: Unlike physical harassment, cyber harassment can reach a victim at virtually any time.
- Complex investigation: Investigators may require device examination, digital forensics, subscriber information and electronic records.
8. Relationship Between Cybercrime and Traditional Criminal Law:
Cybercrime law does not completely replace traditional criminal law. Rather, the two systems operate together. Section 27 PECA provides that an offence cannot be denied legal recognition merely because it was committed through or in relation to an information system. Section 28 further provides that the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 applies to PECA offences to the extent that it is not inconsistent with the Act. Accordingly, cyberspace often changes the instrumentality of the offence, rather than eliminating the underlying principles of criminal liability.
9. Conclusion:
Offences against persons in cyberspace are crimes in which digital technology is used to interfere with an individual’s dignity, reputation, privacy, identity, security or personal autonomy. They include identity misuse, online reputational attacks, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, sexual blackmail and online grooming. Their principal distinction from traditional crimes lies not necessarily in the nature of the harm but in the digital means by which it is inflicted. Anonymity, borderless communication, rapid dissemination, permanence of digital material, and the ability to target victims remotely make cyber offences qualitatively different and require specialized legal and investigative mechanisms.