Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency has been using artificial intelligence to profile passengers as well as conduct an examination of their mobile phones.
Legal experts have argued that these searches may exceed the agency’s powers and is a violation of privacy rights granted by the Constitution of Pakistan.
The agency’s passenger profiling system it designed to identify high-risk travelers rather than subjecting everyone to the checks, FIA Additional Director General for Immigration Nouman Siddiqui told Arab News on July 26, 2026.
FIA officials evaluate a passenger’s travel history, destination, visa category and personal background before deciding whether further questioning is necessary.
“If someone is traveling to a country like Senegal or Malawi on a visit visa, has no travel history, no work visa, no family connection there, and their background does not match the purpose of travel, that person comes under profiling,” Siddiqui explained to Arab News reported.
Profiling of women passengers
On August 10, a woman was offloaded from a flight at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport over a suspected case of human trafficking. The woman told the FIA that she was travelling to Baku to meet a man she had contacted through a dating app, and she expected to received Rs300,000 in exchange for the meeting. The FIA said a voluntary check of her mobile phone revealed several suspicious chats and contacts allegedly involving discussions about sexual encounters in exchange for money.
Another woman shared how the FIA officers tried to stop her from boarding while she was travelling for a work trip from the Lahore airport. “The FIA officer at the immigration didn’t scan my passport, rather asked me to take my documents for approval to a senior officer. The senior officer then asked me about my travel history, only after which I was allowed to board,” she said.
“If hadn’t travelled before then it’s possibly that I would’ve been stopped from boarding altogether. It’s sad that only women travelling alone were targeted like this,” she remarked.
