A parliamentary panel on Tuesday proposed to completely ban pre-paid SIMs which were used as a major tool for terror activities in the country. The National Assembly Select Committee that met with Khawaja Sohail Mansoor in the chair in the Parliament house expressed its concerns over the method of issuing SIMs and said that more than fifty percent crimes in the country had been carrie out successfully because of prepaid SIMs.
The committee said that the basic responsibility lay with the telecom operators who sold millions of SIMs without adopting any mechanism or proper verification methods. Legislators said that Telecos had done that just to get financial benefits and had destroyed the society in the process.
Anusha Rehman questioned the performance of PTA in monitoring the system of prepaid SIMs and said that the issuance of SIMs without a proper mechanism had resulted in increased cyber crimes, therefore prepaid SIMs should be completely banned in the county. She suggested that a Biometric system should be adopted before the issuance of SIMs, adding that post-paid SIMs would also be helpful in removing illegal exchange from the country.
FIA officials said that voter lists were a big source of ID theft, because credentials of the common man could be snatched from these lists and later used to get multiple SIMs. FIA officials further said that after research conducted by FIA it had been learnt that millions of mobile phones in the country had the same IEMI number and had been smuggled in the country from abroad. They said that these cell phones were not regulated and had been transported through grey markets.
The committee directed IT officials to include the issuance of SIMs in a proposed bill for the prevention of cyber crimes in the country.
During the meeting, FIA and the Ministry of Law expressed concerns over the newly drafted ‘Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2012’. FIA said that during its meeting with the IT Ministry, they had proposed to remove certain clauses but these had not been changed or removed. The Law Ministry said that the language of the draft had created hurdles as many words used in the draft had the same meaning.
Afaq Ahmed from Pakistan Software Houses Association (PASHA) said that there were procedural differences between FIA and PASHA because FIA wanted complete control and authority to apprehend culprits.
Legislators said that the purpose of this draft was not to apprehend individuals but to eliminate cyber crimes from the country.
NA body calls for complete ban on prepaid SIMs
