KPC holds training for cybercrime reporting

To provide knowledge to journalists about cybercrimes and their impact on society, the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Saturday organised a training seminar in the club’s auditorium.

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Additional Director Faizullah Korejo, FIA Deputy Director Abdul Ghaffar and Media Matters for Democracy’s program manager Hija Karman gave lectures to the participants, explaining to them how they could effectively cover cybercrimes, including social media crimes, banking fraud and other online crimes.

KPC Joint Secretary and senior journalist Saqib Sagheer conducted the event which was attended by a large number of journalists.

Korejo said the FIA had been increasing the strength of its investigators to meet the growing challenge of cyber complaints in Pakistan. “Internet penetrated into our country very fast but people were not educated on how to use the internet.”

He said the United States and China were the countries with the highest occurrence of cybercrimes and Pakistan was not ranked among the top 20 insecure countries in cybersecurity.

He said the FIA had been increasingly receiving higher number of complaints regarding harassment through social media and online frauds. “Through using cyberspace, threatening the people on email, hacking, child pornography, money laundering, and sell and purchase of weapons are being carried out,” he added.

He explained that in 2019, the FIA had received the highest number of complaints of harassment against women. “In 2,136 cases, complaints were registered with evidence. Also, 450 inquiries were conducted and 26 people were arrested last year,” he said.

Appreciating the KPC for organising the training session, Korejo said the government bodies and civil society needed to organise a series of workshops focusing on digital security awareness in major universities of Pakistan, typically for young women.

Ghaffar was of the view that it was important to educate the youth on digital literacy so they could be aware of the different dimensions of digital rights and could identify various techniques to deal with cyber-bullying.

Mentioning the cybercrime bill passed in 2016, he said the law had been instrumental in crushing cyber-terrorism and other online crimes. “People must use social media and mobile phones carefully to stay safe from cybercrimes," said Ghaffar. Social media users should keep their passwords safe and log out when not using a computer or mobile phone, he added.

KPC President Imtiaz Khan Faran, Secretary Arman Sabir and other office-bearers also attended the event.