KARACHI – FIA Sindh Zone Director Dr Amir Ahmed announced the website’slaunch for reporting cyber crime in the country while addressing a pressconference at the FIA office in Karachi on Tuesday.
According to Dr Ahmed, the FIA Sindh Zone Cybercrime Circle received around2,000 complaints in the 2017 which could be classified into three majorcategories. Around 76% cases were related to blackmailing, harassment anddefamation through social media, 14% cases to financial fraud and 5% casesto threatening calls, the officer said, adding that the remaining caseswere related to email hacking and spoofing.
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“Many businesses takes place in the virtual world now. Social media hassurpassed any other form of dialogue as it is being used for diversepurposes of communication,” Dr Ahmed said. He added that there were over 50million broadband subscribers in Pakistan and the number of mobile phoneusers was as high as 150 million. “The [information technology] and virtualspace are also being used by criminal elements in committing cybercrimes.”
This is the first time a web portal is being initiated for registeration ofspecific complaints, the officer said. “People living anywhere in Sindh canlodge their complaints to us on our website [www.fiacybercrimesindh.com.pk].We think people should not remain silent over cybercrimes and should comeforward to register complaints,” Dr Ahmed said, adding that the onlinecomplaint system was very easy and could prove beneficial in theelimination of cybercrimes and provision of justice to the victims ofcybercrimes.
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Majority of the victims of cybercrime were young girls, women and children,the officer said, adding that through the website they would easilyregister their complaints without getting noticed.
“The format to lodge complaint is user-friendly and available in English,Urdu and Sindhi,” Dr Ahmed informed the media. He added that the agencywould also accept complaints not lodged directly by the victims but throughtheir relatives or friends on their behalf.