ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency, FIA, has received 29,577 cyber-crime complaints over the past two years. This was shared by an FIA official while briefing the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication.
According to FIA director Afzal Mehmood Butt, out of these complaints, 9822 were related to fake social media accounts. Out of the them, FIA was able to resolve 8723 complaints. Furthermore, he shared that complaints against 34, 846 URLs were received. Till this time, FIA took action against 28, 460 URLs and blocked them.
However, the official expressed disappointment at the lack of cooperation from social media companies in helping them resolve cases. He shared that since August 2016, FIA received 15, 433 complaints regarding Facebook, 6067 regarding Twitter and 3143 related to Whatsapp. However, these complaints were still being worked on.
Pakistan enacted a cyber crime law in August 2016 called Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act, PECA. Under PECA, FIA is designated as the investigating agency.
Meabwhile, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, PTA, Chairman Amir Azeem informed the committee that it had blocked 1684 website and social media accounts for spreading hateful content.
Simplifying the Complaint Registration Process:
Meanwhile, the committee chair Ali Khan Jadoon expressed concern at the tedious process of registering a complaint with FIA and noted that the process “needs simplification and awareness regarding it should be raised at the very lowest level”.
Other committee members also advised FIA to simplify the process especially for women.
On the other, FIA official said that they the authority had limited man power comprising of 114 officials. However, recruitment for 407 additional posts was under process and would be completed soon.
