Senate body for legislation to prevent illegal sale of SIMs

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

Published: April 23, 2010
ISLAMABAD - The Senate Standing Committee on Interior while talking severe notice of the inability of law enforcement agencies in obtaining calls data of cell phones used in terrorist activities, has directed the Government to make necessary arrangements for the provision of facility to them.
The Committee also directed the Federal Government as well as the IT (Information Technology) Ministry to introduce strong legislation to prevent sale of SIMs (Subscriber Identity Modules) with out proper verification. It further directed the Ministry to prevent their unauthorised/unverified usage adding that the previous legislation was weak in this regard.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Talha Mahmood also directed Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to direct the mobile operators for establishment of separate ‘call centres’ to entertain the complaints of masses regarding obnoxious/wrong calls.
Earlier, the Senate Standing Committee on Interior met here on Thursday under the Chairmanship of Senator Talha Mahmood and representatives of PTA, IT Ministry and LEAs were also present on the occasion.
The Committee was called to take necessary steps for de-activation of unauthorised/unverified SIMs being used mostly in criminal and terrorist activities, which are the main source of increase in crime rate.
Malik Mohammad Iqbal, Additional Inspector General (AIG) of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Punjab apprised the Committee that the LEAs were facing problems in tracing the terrorists involved in heinous crimes like terrorist and kidnapping activities, as they had no facility to access the data of calls of cell numbers used in those activities.
He further told the Committee that only Inter-Services of Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) had the capability to access the data of such calls.
However, the PTA and IT Ministry representatives apprised the Committee that they had nothing to do with the Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs) about accessing the data of cell phone calls and it was the uniform policy of the Government. The Committee decided to write a letter to the Federal Government in this regard suggesting that police officers up to the rank of SSP and above should be given the mandate to access the data of a caller. The authorities concerned also told the Committee that the existing Telephone and Telegraph Act only applied on land phone users and necessary legislation was needed for the mobile phone users to stop wrong /obnoxious calls.