Senator says Nadra, bank and FBR data is being sold on the dark web

A PML-N senator has told a Senate panel that sensitive personal data linked to Nadra, banks and the Federal Board of Revenue is circulating on the dark web, warning that the scale of the alleged leak points to insider involvement.\n\nDuring a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, Senator Afnanullah Khan said personal information about Pakistani citizens can allegedly be bought for as little as Rs500. He said such access would be difficult without facilitation from within relevant departments.\n\nThe senator cited an identity-fraud case in which a person allegedly travelled to India in 2023 using a fake passport prepared in the name of a consultant attached to the attorney general’s office. The affected lawyer told lawmakers the impostor used his identity and later forced him to take family members to Nadra to re-establish his citizenship record.\n\nOfficials from Immigration and Passports told the committee that Nadra has shared multiple forgery cases and said a monitoring dashboard has been introduced to curb fraudulent travel. When questioned about how personal records are compromised, the director general said leakage can also occur when people share ID and passport details through apps such as WhatsApp, adding that safeguards have since been strengthened and claiming fake passports can no longer be obtained.\n\nMinister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry said the government is moving toward establishing a dedicated cyber security-related authority and would brief the senator on Nadra-related concerns. The discussion also referenced earlier disclosures that personal data of a large number of Hajj applicants had surfaced on the dark web, underscoring ongoing worries about data protection and accountability.