Dealing withcyber crime needs more resources

LAHORE :Owing to an expanding virtual world, the uncontrolled use of social media has been on the rise with every passing year with less guidance of users’ guardians.

Due to the increase in the number of social media users and apparent ignorance vis-à-vis teaching and guidance on the part of parents, Cybercrime in Pakistan have increased at an alarming rate.

Majority of social media users lacks in knowledge and guidance from their elders, peer groups, friends, etc about how to engage in online activities while ensuring personal safety and security and how to avoid harm to other users at the same time.

Around 35 million people in the country use internet and a large number of them use internet via mobile phones. Among those about 15 million use Facebook and some three million use Twitter, etc.

As a matter of fact, easy access of the teenagers to Android phones is causing a great concern not only for themselves but for their parents as well. In the absence of regular monitoring and teachings on the part of parents their school/college going children, both male and female, often land in trouble easily. 

In such an atmosphere, so many lives and families have to suffer sometime even due to little mistakes. People share personal photos and chats of their friends to the general public through Facebook, Twitter, etc, without knowing the fact that how it could ruin one’s life and family’s alike.

Although the federal government empowered National Response Centre for Cybercrimes (NR3C) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), sole authority to deal with such crimes, with Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016, to curb abuse of social media but shortage of staff and other resources hamper its fight against this menace. 

Alone in Punjab, from January to September 2017, the NR3C Lahore received around 4,500 complaints; 3,500 complaints verification is in process, 2,200 of them related to Facebook crimes. In those Facebook related complaints, over 1,600 females became victim of social media abuse.  Over 500 inquiries are pending with NR3C Lahore in the subject time period whereas after completion of investigation, over 100 cases have also been registered so far. 

These figures are in sharp contrast to past few years where NR3C had received around 5,000 complaints in 2015 and around 7,000 in 2016 from across the country. Furthermore, NR3C had registered around 1,000 inquiries in 2015 and 800 in 2016 in all the provinces of the country. 

Ironically, to deal with these thousands of numbers, there are only 13 investigators (field officers), including two assistant directors, four inspectors and six Sub-Inspectors (SI) available with NR3C Lahore. These 13 men have to cover territorial jurisdiction within 32 districts within Punjab with only one available official vehicle.

Requesting anonymity, a senior FIA official based in Islamabad told The News that they were trying hard to deal with such crimes even with less resources and equipment. He said one year has passed since PECA was adopted but no progress has been made for Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) with foreign countries, particularly with USA due to which their investigation got delayed in almost every case.

“To get information regarding IP activity logs against social media related crimes, MLAT is essential because the servers of the US companies namely Facebook, Yahoo, Gmail, Twitter, Hotmail, etc. refuse to provide any assistance or information in the absence of the treaty,” the official remarked.

To another question, he said parents have to be more vigilant regarding online activities of their children to keep them away from falling prey to this crime. “We, ‘FIA’, can’t address this issue alone through arrests and convictions as parents have to fulfill their responsibility in keeping their young ones aware of negative impacts of social media use. 

The official also suggested that authorities concerned should also wake up from slumber for social media awareness with such efforts, including social media as a subject in the curriculum for teaching particularly the youth about its advantages and disadvantages.