The Ministry of Interior has instructed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to improve upon its monetary cyberspace regulations. FIA has been given yet another ultimatum of 90 days. The agency is to construct a new mechanism which fully integrates with the ministry’s demands of operations against corruption, human smuggling and financial irregularities during this timeframe.
During a recent meeting of the Ministry of Interior with top FIA officials, it was suggested that a database of human traffickers and smugglers should be constructed to track the criminals’ logistics, operations and financial activity. The meeting was chaired by Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan. The ministry stressed upon the fact that FIA’s performance has remained unsatisfactory for a long time and it has failed to slow down or stop corruption. However FIA’s recent efforts against human smugglers are appreciable and quite a few of these criminal groups have been arrested.
In the agency’s defence, the officials said that it has become difficult to curb human smugglers and corruption in recent times because FIA has been tasked with additional duties like monitoring cyberspace and law enforcement.
FIA holds great importance when it comes to restoring the confidence of international telecom community and new companies who wish to enter different Pakistani markets like IT, media and communications. The agency is required to block grey traffic channels throughout the country to contribute towards its security and transparency of the government’s intentions towards assisting these international corporations.
FIA has reportedly made 60 raids against cybercrime during 2014. Out of these, more than 50 were related to illegal telecom exchanges. These illegal exchanges are troublesome for communications service providers and steal important international call revenue which should otherwise go to these service providers through proper taxed channels.
DTH licenses are also conditional to full cooperation from the government and FIA will have to stop the illegal DTH services and their network throughout the country. FIA was previously tasked to stop their payment and hardware networks in Pakistan.
The recent cybercrime bill has extended FIA’s jurisdiction to monetary cyberspace and enforcing a safer environment for international financial organisations investing in the country. Director FIA, Usman Anwar had this to say on the matter:
Cyber Crime is not about running illegal exchanges for grey calls only but it also includes credit card swaps, hacking Facebook accounts, robbing any digital data, defrauding using internet and all such criminal activity that falls under the category of electronic crime and theft. In Pakistan, the backbone of this crime is the misuse of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
via Moremag
