CAIRO — Nidal al-Said, chairman of parliament's Communications and Information Technology Committee, announced on April 16 that the committee approved a 45-article draft law submitted by the government to combat cybercrime. He told the press that the committee is now working on preparing a report on the bill to submit to parliamentary speaker Ali Abdel Aal for adoption.

The committee finished discussing all articles of the draft law in less than a month and a half, as it held its first meeting on March 5 in the presence of representatives of 19 ministries, including the ministries of Defense, Interior, Telecommunications and Information Technology.

Mohammad Hijazi, representative of the Ministry of Communications — which submitted the draft law to parliament on Feb. 13 — explained during the March 5 meeting that the draft law is divided into two parts. The first includes the obligations of service providers in terms of securing users’ information, saving data and tracking procedures in the event of a crime, while the second part covers all types of cybercrime. Hijazi pointed out that technological development has produced a range of crimes representing a threat to national security, in reference to websites inciting against the regime.

The bill has stirred nationwide controversy. Observers believe some of its articles aim to entrench state control over websites and set a legal framework for blocking them, all the while intimidating social media users. The Communications and Information Technology Committee, however, denied such accusations, arguing that the law aims to control the technological system in Egypt and not to undermine public freedoms or shut down social media websites.