Daily Times

KARACHI: The ID’s of some high level police officials are being used by a racket involved in illegal sale and purchase of call date record (CDR) of citizens being active in country, Daily Times has learnt through reliable sources.

Two offices of high officials have come under the Federal Investigation Agency’s scanner for “illegally” acquiring call data records (CDRs) from mobile service providers and then selling it to private persons in the open market. The cyber crime circle of federal investigation agency has received a written complaint from a mobile service provider company working in Pakistan in which company’s administration asked the agency to probe into this sensitive matter, source told Daily Times.

According to the source it is permanent to mention that accessing someone else’s CDR or location from a service provider is illegal for all, except Police and other security agencies, as it amounts to infringement of privacy.

“CDRs contain all the call data record in details on one indivisible including incoming and outgoing calls, numbers, locations, time, text massages and subscribers other details”.

A well known private mobile service provider in its dispatched latter pointed out two high officials of police department including one from Karachi district west and one from Punjab from where CDRs were obtained by using the IDs of Deputy Inspector Generals who were holding the charge of these offices.

In the said latter the Cyber Crime Circle was provided by the company with details of ID’s of DIG West Zone Karachi and the mobile numbers which were used to receive money in return for the CDRs and also the details of numbers of whom the CDRs were obtained.

According to the source suspects involved in selling CDRs in open market to private people for personal use are likely to be the sub-ordinates of high officials who knew their IDs or the officials were them selves involved in the trade; the actual facts will surface once the investigation is completed.

Sources have informed that nowadays, wealthy individuals and influential personalities have begun to use such methods to spy on rivals to settle their issues by their own that’s why there is a “huge demand” to get hold of the desired CDRs.

Black Sheep, in the force have started to use their authority to access the CDRs and sell it for as much as 10,000 to 50,000 per record.

“It is such a sensitive and heinous crime that it should be dealt with iron hand because privacy of individuals is at stake and it can create more problems if miscreants once start to get benefits from this loophole and are able to acquire CDRs of VIPs” source added concluding the point.

It is pertinent to mention that in recent past Federal Interior Ministry has taken various steps to ensure institutions like NADRA, FIA, Passport and Immigration, to work within their domain.