Afghanistan

Summary

Afghanistan's applicable legal framework for web crawling is minimal and practically inaccessible. A Cyber Crime Law (28 articles) was signed in June 2017 under the Republic government and integrated into the Penal Code; it criminalises hacking, unauthorised access to computer systems and data, modification or destruction of computer systems, disclosure of personal information, and cyber-terrorism. Since the Taliban assumption of power in August 2021, the government has intermittently disrupted internet infrastructure, restricted access to social media platforms, and announced licensing requirements for digital content operators. There is no functioning data-protection authority, no comprehensive privacy law, no TDM or fair-dealing framework suited to crawling, and no relevant case law. The Cyber Crime Law enacted in 2017 remains formally on the books under Taliban administration, but judicial enforcement is unpredictable and the overall governance context is one of severe institutional disruption. Web crawling targeting Afghan government content carries high practical and political uncertainty; the legal analysis is therefore necessarily incomplete.