Pakistan's AI policy formulated after consultations: Shaza Fatima

Minister for Information Technology Shaza Fatima has said Pakistan’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy has been formulated in a comprehensive manner after consultations.

Addressing an event in Islamabad on Wednesday, she said the government will focus on its implementation and execution.

She said we have to embrace the technology to take the country forward on the path of progress and development.

At present, there does not exist any AI-specific regulatory structure in Pakistan, however, number of initiatives including laws/rules/policy etc in the ministry attempts to address the potential challenges associated with use of AI.

This includes but is not limited to the National Cyber Security Policy 2021, Pakistan Cloud First Policy 2022, CERT Rules 2023 and other sectoral regulations such as Critical Telecom Data and Infrastructure Security Regulation (CTDISR).

Furthermore, the Data Governance Policy will set the ground for a conducive environment towards enabling all stakeholders for seamless data exchange as envisaged in the Digital Economy Enhance Project (DEEP).

It is significant to add that the first pillar of AI provides for AI Regulatory Directorate, Center of Excellence in AI and other measurers will help enable an AI-specific regulatory framework which will conduct need base assessment of data being created and processed for the defined purposes.