While IT Minister Anusha Rahman express the priority of her agenda, which is to make Pakistan a digitally advanced country, on the other hand, lots of efforts are being made to carry this vision out. As of now, the country is working on efforts to develop and deploy a system to block lost or stolen phones.
A similar attempt was made back in 2008-09, however, it was not successful. The reason was that at the time, IMEI numbers were required to block phones. However, this time around, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has suggested a new way for users to block their stolen phones in Pakistan.
A local company is already in works with PTA to find a solution for this problem.
How to Block Stolen Phones in Pakistan
Here’s how the new system for blocking lost/stolen phones will work:
- PTA will maintain a list of allowed IMEIs (imported legally, PTA approved IMEIs, IMEIs paired with CNICs etc.) to be allowed to register with local networks.
- All phone owners will be asked to register IMEI numbers with their SIM card (and ultimately a CNIC number, since SIMs are mapped with CNICs)
- When a phone is stolen or lost, it will be put in blocked list
- In case if IMEI is in blocked list or if IMEI isn’t matching the registered SIM card number, it won’t be allowed to connect with any network.
An official statement was also recorded for this software;
Once the software is ready, with the insertion of SIM card, the said mobile phone’s IMEI number will be registered. In case of theft or loss, when the subscriber will block the SIM, the mobile phone will also be blocked automatically.