THE problem of sim spoofing has been increasing day after day that is ultimately creating harassment among customers. In sim spoofing the customer sim may be used illegally for calls and text messages, without his knowledge, though the sim is active and in the use of the customer.

Obviously, it is not possible for the common man to to do sim spoofing. Only those who have high accessibility on the customers’ private information can do this activity as a result of illegal use of the authority.

The people who are involved in sim spoofing can tell the exact location, including the area and the city, wherever a customer has gone. Thus they are able to listen to the customer’s mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-landline conversations, can also interfere in the conversations, as well as read text messages, including the deleted ones, bug landline numbers and can use the customer sims illegally without his knowledge.

No doubt, sim spoofing creates harassment for a customer, especially when he finds that an unknown person has taken control of his sim and has received the incoming call despite the fact that the sim was with him and was active.

However, whenever the victim customer changes the sim, he finds to his surprise within five minutes that the same unknown person has traced the new sim number and started to contact him on it.

Many times a customer receives calls from a ‘private number’, and text messages from numbers that are surprisingly not in anyone’s use. When the customer contacts the sim company, he is told that no such sim is issued as yet to anyone and is available for sale. The government must ensure the privacy of customers and monitor those individuals and authorities who are actually given the responsibility to monitor others’ smses and calls.

IMRAN Karachi