ISLAMABAD, May 22: The particulars of citizens in the records of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) are being shared with the intelligence and investigation agencies, said the Nadra chairman, Brig (Rtd) Saleem Mueen, here on Wednesday.
To a question about sharing of information on Pakistani citizens with the US Federal Bureau of Investigations through the PISCES software installed at the country’s airports, he said his organisation was providing information only to the Pakistani security agencies on demand basis and not to any foreign agency.
“Yes, PISCES has been installed and we have a communicating link with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) through our network,” he added.
He said the Nadra would have ISO certification on security aspects. “At the moment,” he said, “the authority has a stand alone server to communicate information on demand and the rest of the data is secure and cannot be accessed from outside.”
To another question about sharing of information on the citizens database with the highest bidder on commercial basis, Brig Mueen said there were a number of concerns on how to give data to the right customer.
He agreed to the suggestion that the wealth of data with the authority could be used for statistical analysis by the Planning Commission, the banks and other research organisations subject to security considerations. The information about the citizens was a sacred trust, he said.
He said the new identity card numbers would enable the Nadra to pinpoint on a map exactly where a particular person lived, and his sex and the family roots.
Explaining the reasons for delay in issuance of new identity cards, the Nadra chairman said the entire process had to be started afresh as the single data entry process was giving a data margin of 20 to 25 per cent. With the introduction of the double data entry system, he said, the error margin was reduced to less than 3 per cent.
Out of a total population of some seven million, he said 140,000 received cards with mistakes mostly relating to wrong address or the date of birth.
He said the process of issuing the identity cards was being simplified.
The Nadra, he said, planned to set up 200 Swift Registration Centres with customer-oriented service delivery by the end of next year.
As a pilot project, the first centre was established in Rawalpindi and 70 such centres are planned in different cities by the end of 2002, he said.
In response to a question about facilitating the citizens, he said the new forms for the identity cards had been simplified and the citizens registering at the Swift centres would not be required to submit information about driving license, the National Tax Number etc.
Very soon, the centres would have the facility to just feed in the name and address of the applicants and process the verification of particulars for issuing passports, he said.
Giving reasons for delay in issuing the identity cards, he said there were a number of constraints. Some 900,000 cards, he said, were blocked because somebody was suspicious. Some 138,000 persons, he said, were found to have double identity cards when a record of 16 million card holders was scrutinised.
He said the scrutinisation of attestation by the authority led to registration of FIRs against two elected leaders and a doctor who gave false attestations.
There was a doctor who attested more than 7,000 forms, some of which belonged to people of Bengali origin, he said, adding, the cards were cancelled later.
He said the authority also got FIRs registered against 20 persons who had run away with the Nadra application forms.