The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Wednesday informed the Senate’s Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication that passengers’ data acquired during the process of mobile registration at airports was being misused with connivance of travel agents.
The committee, however, observed that mobile phones were also being registered under the names of minors and this could not happen without ‘internal’ help.
The committee met under the chairmanship of Senator Rubina Khalid. Senators Kalsoom Parveen, Rukhsana Zuberi, Faisal Javed, Ghous Muhammad Niazi, Abdur Rehman Malik, Mian Ateeq Shaikh, Taj Afridi, Joint Secretary IT Taimur Khan, Member PTA Khawar Siddique were also present.
The committee strongly recommended having a fool-proof system of data security and first raising awareness among people. The committee members remarked that the system was launched to curb smuggling, but it had caused more problems for customers.
The PTA official told the meeting that mobile registration system was automated. “The system has been integrated with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and is highly secure,” he said. The committee, however, did not buy the argument that the system was causing any convenience. The committee members said that smuggling continued because there was no mobile phone manufacturing industry in the country. “Phones are being smuggled in huge numbers till date,” he said. The committee members also said that they had not been provided any official statistics in this regard.
The PTA official said 663,622 personal users had registered themselves since February. “Out of these 440,821 were registered under baggage rule exemption with no tax; while 12,293 were registered in the duty-paid category. A total of 5.89 million commercial mobile phones were imported in 2016. In 2019, an increase to 9.27 million commercially imported phones was registered,” the official said.
The committee observed that the system put in place by the PTA and FBR was not properly publicised in public. The meeting decided to call the FBR and the FIA at the next meeting to brief the committee on the system.
While discussing the matter of nominal cost being taken to register the mobile phones and the money not being paid to the state, committee members said that people at local shops were registering phones without following any due process and identity details. The PTA member told the committee that this was happening as part of the same misuse of passengers’ information. He said that PTA on receiving complaints referred the inquiry to FIA.
While briefing the committee on the project of IT Park in Islamabad, the project director said that the proposed IT park would cover an area of 14.9 acres. “The project is being funded through PSDP and bank financing. The project will be completed by August 31, 2022. It will have IT offices, laboratories, incubation centres, academia industry linkage opportunities as well as will provide space for IT infrastructure to private businesses and new entrepreneurs,” he said.
