Afghanistan’s criminal courts and relevant authorities are still mainly based on manual procedures in their day to day activities, therefore based on international best practices digitalization and emerging use of technology have a big impact on refining procedures related to the collection of evidence and its use in courts However, handling digital evidence comes with a unique challenges and requires special procedures. One of the most complex aspects is to keep the integrity of the digital evidence.  Digital data is very fragile and can be easily modified or deleted. Today, courts of law and relevant government authorities need to take into consideration that digital information could possibly be stored outside Afghanistan and can be only accessed remotely, therefore It will be interesting to see how cyber forensic investigators win trust and integrate with traditional Afghan courts.

Cybercrime is a global challenge which is growing at a significant pace,  Keeping up with new form of crimes and it’s penalties would be a another obstacle for responsible government entities, the delay between the recognition of potential abuses of new technologies and necessary changes to the  cybercrime procedures would require continuous international cooperation due to the rapid development of new cybercrimes and their complex structure, consequently it is necessary to monitor the development of international standard and strategies , without their support the fight against growing cybercrime would run into serious difficulties due to inconsistent or incompatible legislations.  Now a big question that raises here is whether Afghanistan’s government entities are ready to adopt to this continuous change and does it have technical capacity to manage and resolve complex cyber crimes ?

People, processes and technology are key pillars to ensure confidentiality , integrity and availability of digital information but presently the efforts to improve ICT infrastructure by national unity government(NUG) to bring reforms by advancing technology and optimizing processes are not visible. Secondly, Nepotism, political instability, lack of professionals and deteriorating security situation have worsened the ongoing brain drain though some efforts has been made recently by the government to attract skilled Afghan diaspora living in different parts of the world but the adopted strategy has been very slow. Finally, hacking of National Security Council’s website on 26^th November 2016 is a clear indication of Afghanistan facing cyber threat and it will be interesting to find out in near future the impact, enforcement and effectiveness of new enacted law in minimizing elusive cybercrime in Afghanistan.

Despite the current poor ICT security challenges in Afghanistan, the future does not appear to be futile.  Afghanistan is stepping into the digital age with impending e-tazkira (Electronic Identity card), electronic passport and e-government project initiatives however, the risks and consequences of cyber attacks resulting in sensitive information leakage would be very high if reforms are not made on time  although Afghanistan Cybercrime law in this vital time is going to have a very strong message for criminal minds operating inside and outside Afghanistan.

View expressed in this article are of the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok’s editorial policy.

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