PECA 2016 § 38 — Limitation of liability of service providers

Statutory text (English)

(1) No service provider shall be subject to
any civil or criminal liability, unless it is established that the service provider had specific actual
knowledge and willful intent to proactively and positively participate, and not merely through omission
or failure to act, and thereby facilitated, aided or abetted the use by any person of any information
system, service, application, online platform or telecommunication system maintained, controlled or
managed by the service provider in connection with a contravention of this Act or rules made
thereunder or any other law for the time being in force:

Provided that the burden to prove that a service provider had specific actual knowledge, and
willful intent to proactively and positively participate in any act that gave rise to any civil or criminal
liability shall be upon the person alleging such facts and no interim or final orders, or directions shall
be issued with respect to a service provider by any investigation agency or Court unless such facts have
so been proved and determined:

Provided further that such allegation and its proof shall clearly identify with specificity the
content, material or other aspect with respect to which civil or criminal liability is claimed including
but not limited to unique identifiers such as the Account Identification (Account ID), Uniform
Resource Locator (URL), Top Level Domain (TLD), Internet Protocol Addresses (IP Addresses), or
other unique identifier and clearly state the statutory provision and basis of the claim.

(2) No service provider shall under any circumstance be liable under this Act, rules made
thereunder or any other law for maintaining and making available the provision of their service in good
faith.

(3) No service provider shall be subject to any civil or criminal liability as a result of informing
a subscriber, user or end-users affected by any claim, notice or exercise of any power under this Act,
rules made thereunder or any other law:

Provided that the service provider, for a period not exceeding fourteen days, shall keep
confidential and not disclose the existence of any investigation or exercise of any power under this Act
when a notice to this effect is served upon it by an authorized officer, which period of confidentiality
may be extended beyond fourteen days if, on an application by the authorized officer, the Court
authorizes an extension for a further specified period upon being satisfied that reasonable cause for
such extension exists.

(4) No service provider shall be liable under this Act, rules made thereunder or any other law
for the disclosure of any data or other information that the service provider discloses only to the extent
of the provisions of this Act.

(5) No service provider shall be under any obligation to proactively monitor, make inquiries
about material or conten thosted, cached, routed, relayed, conduit, transmitted or made available by
such intermediary or service provider.

Source and verification

Source citation: PECA 2016 (Act XL of 2016) s.38: Pakistan Code portal consolidated official PDF 'THE PREVENTION OF ELECTRONIC CRIMES ACT, 2016' (incl. Act XXXVII of 2023 & Act II of 2025 amendments), p. 32, 33, ingested 2026-09-15. Automated transcription from official source (pypdf extraction, audited artifact repair); human admin re-check required before production.

Verification status: verified · Text status: auto_transcribed_verified_source

The record cites an official source, but its transcription is automated or only partly checked; a human re-check is pending.

Official Urdu text status: pending_official_urdu_text. Where official Urdu wording has not been sourced, Qanoon does not substitute an unverified translation for the statutory text.

Historical text notes

1 historical record is linked to this section. Historical wording may be incomplete or pending verification; it is not presented as current law.

• Date not confirmed: Consolidated current text as published in the official Pakistan Code PDF (p. 32, 33) — reflects all amendments recorded in the official footnotes up to ingest date 2026-09-15. Automated transcription; per-amendment…

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