Is Artificial Intelligence a Threat to Privacy Rights in Pakistan?

Do you recognize the “right to privacy” a fundamental right? In the past decades there has been a debate on different platforms . Is there any law in Pakistan regarding the privacy of individuals or not? If there is then why is there no proper implementation of these laws?

Before digging into the Privacy rights, first of all we should know what actually privacy is, the word privacy has broadened meaning and can be used in different dimensions the simplest meaning of the word privacy is, 

"A state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people"

Article 14 of Constitution of Pakistan states that

"The dignity of man and, subject to law, the privacy of home, shall be inviolable"

Article 12 of UDHR states that, 

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation" 

Currently PECA (The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016)  ordinance is the only domestic law which acts as a data protection law in Pakistan but sadly it has certain loopholes, and not filling the need of current scenarios of Artificial intelligence. As the world is becoming a global village instantly so is the use of artificial-intelligence. Artificial intelligence is basically a software generated by the computer or machine to perform human functions or to learn from human behaviors. There are certain benefits of artificial-intelligence  but it is also a threat to the privacy rights of the individuals in Pakistan. Artificial intelligence is invading the privacy of the individuals and they are not even aware of that. AI is collecting personal data and information of the people e.g. name, phone numbers, pictures without their consent and sometimes uses this information against that specific individual without his knowledge. From The above article it is evident that the privacy of a person should  not be violated in any of the forms. However in the modern era AI significantly collects data from the user's search history and tracks his /her activities and therefore learns from the user to generate data. Which raises a question whether a person's web history/ watch history or any other activity is protected or not.

Further the modern AI programs raise the question of liability. When a program violates a law, who will be held liable? the programmer? The one who made the hardware or the one who uses the program. 

If the programs are held liable for a certain violation and they are punished for the violations by Imposing fines or sanctions, will they be able in any way to compensate for the loss occurred to the human and even if the machine is held liable and punished, whether the Punishment will  effect the machine with regards to dignity and other concerns or will it face any pecuniary losses, even if the machine is fined or punished it doesn't gets affected in a way a human will be because there is a difference between a biologically natural  and artificial person.Therefore it raises concerns on a legal point of view that whether a natural person has to be held liable for a violation done by a program or not?

Or whether an artificial person can be criminally charged. It seems a question of concern that even if a machine does something, how can a machine or a program be liable even if it's liable. How can we punish the machine,Due to its artificiality? It raises further concerns that if the machine automatically learns something from its users then how can it be stopped? And if the programmer is unable to stop the Machine at a certain point  will that be a point of concern? Because how much is the learning capability of a machine? However in conclusion there are no certain answers to all these questions. 

Which makes it a point of ponder for the programmers and legal representatives to think before taking any further steps in the field and to derive its consequences from the powers it has been granted through technology and innovation. 

Legal representatives need to introduce AI machines and  programmers' liability into the field of  law. 

So as a whole I can say there is dire need to amend the previous domestic laws and a new legislation on the data protection to avoid the privacy threats in the future.