Publicity SMS matter of concern

Rawalpindi: An unending series of SMS text messages carrying publicity material of commercial businesses has become a matter of grave concern for the mobile phone users who want to get rid of this problem.

"I daily receive dozens of text messages on my mobile phone that carry publicity material of foot outlets, garment shops, shoes outlets and other such entities. Sending such kind of text messages on personal mobile phone number is sheer violation of privacy laws, said Saqib Sargana, who works at a private firm.

The trend of launching publicity campaigns through text messages is now a common practice and the public relations (PR) firms carry out this work for commercial entities to obtain financial gains.

It is pertinent to mention here that the PR firms often have all types of data of mobile phone users like their age, gender, qualification, profession and home address. So when any commercial entity gives them task for publicity campaign they send text messages to the target audience in the desired areas. Saqib said the question is how the PR firms get this kind of data that is only kept by the government institutions so there is a need to take notice of this kind of situation.