Pakistan

Non-verified SIMs blocked: PTA

April 23, 2010

ISLAMABAD: In a briefing to Senate Standing Committee (SSC), the authorities of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that the record of more than 78 million SIMs have been verified while 10.2 million have been blocked due to non-verification of data.

According to details the SSC on Interior held a meeting on Thursday. During the meeting the SSC for Interior recommended to block all un-registered SIMs which were being used illegally and terrorist activities while the mobile phone companies should establish a call centre like complaint centre to facilitate police and other investigation agencies against criminal activities.

It was also recommended in the meeting that police should be allowed to get access to consumer data. A legislation should be made in this regard to prevent crimes through mobile or landline phones.

The PTA officials further told the committee that they had introduced a new system from January 31, 2009, that activates SIM after the verification of NIC data from NADRA.

The Inspector General (IG) Islamabad, Syed Kalim Imam during the briefing to SSC for Interior said that the police required reviewing of SIM data of the criminals and terrorists before their arrest. However the mobile phone companies refused to give access to the data therefore the police had to face many hurdles.

Chairman SSC for Interior, Senator Talha Mehmood said that no war could be won without the active role of intelligence agencies therefore the agencies should be strengthened and government should spend more money for effective intelligence network and improving their performance.

COMMENTS (1)

Syed A. Mateen | 14 years ago | Reply One person should have one SIM Card at a time. It is a wrong policy of PTA that has allowed people to have 10 SIM’s at a time in an individual’s name. Few years back, I took up this matter in the press so that terrorist’s activities should be curbed in the country. It is a difficult task to monitor and maintain every single cellular user’s data. Why should cell phone users possess so many SIM cards, when they only use one SIM card at a time? If government of Pakistan wants to curb the crimes and terrorist activities from the country, she should restrict the users of cellular phone – In my opinion, cell phone companies should only issue one SIM card to a cell phone user at a time. In case if it is lost, stolen or stanched, then in such a case, police report should be made mandatory for the user to produce before the respective cell phone company for issuance of a duplicate SIM card.

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