Senate Standing Committee for Information Technology and Telecommunication on Wednesday was informed that Ministry of Interior verbally directed the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to block doubtful mobile SIMs in 91 days.
The committee meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Idrees Khan Safi at Parliament House.
The PTA official also informed the committee that under the bio metric system verification around 31 million mobile SIMs were checked and 40 million SIMs were blocked.
He said that three million SIMs were not attached with bio metric system till January 12, 2015 and mobile companies in ten years brought 70,000 bio metric machines for verification and verification process would be completed with the help of NADRA.
Chairman committee Senator Idrees Khan Safi said verification process should be completed as soon as possible and consumers rights protection should also be maintained in this process and it should be ensured that unverified SIMs should not work at any cost.
Chairman PTA Ismail Shah informed the committee that Pakistan is the only country where bio metric system is available.
He said communications with Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Kashmir governments were in process regarding three and four G license auctions.
Minister of State for IT and Telecommunications Anusha Rehman urged for legislation against cyber crimes and said all efforts would be made to block unverified mobile SIMs. (Agencies)