LAHORE: “My Facebook account has been hacked. The hacker has posted objectionable material on it causing a lot of stress to me, my family members and friends,” says a complainant, a woman.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has no remedy to redress the complaint in the absence of a law to check cybercrime, including fake and stolen identities on Facebook, Twitter and other social media links. The complainant is asked to go to either the Ministry of Information and technology or the police. In 2013, the FIA received more than 1,000 such complaints, but it was unable to take up most of them because of lack of an effective law. In exceptional circumstances, the FIA took up a few cases invoking the insufficient Telegraphic Act or Electronic Transaction Ordinance (ETO).
The agency registered a case against a female TV host under section 36 of the ETO (privacy of information or illegal access to an information system) on the complaint of a former top official of the Pakistan Television Corporation.
The host is accused of developing a fake Facebook account and a website page in the name of the ex-MD of PTV and tampering with record and posting objectionable material about him and his family. After taking a considerable time (about two years), the FIA has submitted the case in a court in Lahore.
In another case, the FIA traced a man who was operating a fake Twitter account of a well-known TV anchor. The account was used to make some anti-government tweets. A source in the FIA says the man was let off after he apologised.
The FIA has problems in acting against a fake Facebook account since it has to be done through authorities in the US.
Internews
