Our quirks

Pakistanis deserve a medal for having to live in this country and deal with its idiosyncrasies. I recently lost my mobile phone. I may have written “stolen” but the police prefer the term – ‘missing’. I was told to download the PTA CMS application on a spare phone and get my now missing phone blocked. I downloaded the app and filled in the required information. To block the phone, the app asked for the number of the SIM inserted in the phone. I entered it. Then, the system asked for the OTP (one-time password) sent to the number to which I don’t have any access. There was no option to recover the OTP through another means.

How could a person access messages sent on a SIM inserted in a lost or stolen phone? Taking out duplicate SIMs takes time, and the phone has sensitive data - both personal and work related. It’s shameful that our authorities don’t have a centralized mechanism to deal with such things. The world is embracing AI and machine learning, and we can’t develop a proper app for phone blocking. Fabulous indeed.

Jazib Ovais

Karachi