HYDERABAD: Federal Investiga­tion Agency’s director general Dr Sanaullah Abbasi has stressed the need for amendments to Pakistan Electronic Crime Act and said that criminals have made cyber space unsafe and increased cyber crime.

The agency would soon sign a memorandum of understanding with the country’s universities with regard to cyber security, artificial intelligence and technology, said Abbasi while speaking virtually at the three-day International multi-topic conference that began at the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) in Jamshoro on Wednesday.

He said that pandemic had completely changed the world by shifting many vital issues and functions of governance, businesses and education etc to Internet due to restrictions on peoples’ movement enforced to contain spread of coronavirus. Social distancing would soon be over in the world, he predicted.

‘Criminals have made cyber space unsafe for users’

He said that higher seats of learning were in fact strategic assets of a nation. Though there were innumerable advantages of cyber space, criminals had rendered it unsafe, he said.

He said that FIA’s cyber crime unit consisted of 3,500 members and was equipped with five laboratories which were looking after cyber crime cases. Last year, over 100,000 complaints were received and 70,000 had been received so far this year, he said.

He said that 1,000 cyber criminals were arrested by FIA and 26 of them had been convicted. The Pakistan Electronic Crime Act was a new law, which needed amendments, he said.

MUET VC Prof Aslam Uqaili said that the university would establish a laboratory in the department of software engineering and information technology to work on cyber security and cyber safety in collaboration with FIA.

He said that such conferences would provide opportunities to youths to learn and get in touch with scholars. MUET’s research and academic work maintained high standards of quality hence scholars from world’s best universities cooperated with the university, he said.

He said that these scholars also attended conferences and seminars in MUET. The universities should help societies get rid of different problems with the help of their research work, he said.

Sir Syed University vice chancellor Dr Waliuddin said that many MUET students were teaching in his university in Karachi, which collaborated with MUET in research and academic activities.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2021