ISLAMABAD: The Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications of the National Assembly has been informed that 900,000 URLs have been blocked for reasons such as blasphemous and pornographic content and / or feelings against the state, the judiciary or the armed forces.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) informed the committee on Thursday that citizens can file complaints with the authority against illegal content.
However, officials informed the meeting that any criminal activity related to IT or mobile telephony was treated by the Federal Investigation Agency and that the PTA had no information about cybercrime.
Citizens can file complaints with the PTA against illegal content
They added that there was no law in the country that prohibited criminals or other people whose SIMs had been blocked, to obtain new SIMs.
The committee meeting chaired by Ali Khan Jadoon also approved the bill of the National IT Board (NITB), which was presented by the federal Minister of IT and Telecommunications, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui.
Speaking to media staff after the meeting, Siddiqui said: “Pakistan is already lagging behind the world in many areas, including the prevalence of IT. If we don't convert our official work to e-government now, things will go wrong in the times to come. ”
The minister added that the "intensive use" of IT in government offices would help control corruption and mismanagement there.
The NITB is a department attached to the Ministry of IT and Telecommunications and has the mandate to undertake and coordinate e-government initiatives in federal ministries / divisions and departments, provide consulting and advisory services related to the acquisition and implementation of IT solutions, as well as the capacity building of the staff of these organizations.
After the bill is approved by parliament, the Ministry of IT and Telecommunications will make acquisitions quickly to eliminate deficiencies in the ICT infrastructure in all federal ministries and divisions in order to implement an electronic office application.
The committee also reviewed the status of the IT park to be established in Islamabad, which was conceived in 2008 and for which the Pakistan Software Export Board obtained 33 acres of land for lease from the Capital Development Authority.
The park is being established with technical support and a loan from South Korea, but the project has been delayed for about two years due to an anonymous complaint filed with the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) that one of the pre-selected companies was Blacklisted in 1990 in Korea.
IT ministry officials told the committee that there was "some truth" in the accusations, but the matter was resolved at a joint meeting of the EAD, the Korean Eximbank and the ministry, chaired by former finance minister Asad Umar in February.
IT secretary Shoaib Siddiqui said the project will be completed in August 2022.
Posted on Dawn, September 27, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1507590/900000-websites-blocked-over-content-says-pta