A startling claim in the Senate on Tuesday has raised serious questions about the safety of Pakistani citizens’ personal data, after PML-N Senator Afnanullah Khan said information from NADRA, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), and banks is available for sale on the dark web.
Speaking during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior the senator said that the data of any Pakistani citizen could be bought for as little as Rs500.
He added that such large scale data theft would not be possible without the involvement of someone from within the relevant departments.
The lawmaker also revealed that in 2023, a fraudster travelled to India using a fake passport issued in the name of a consultant working at the Attorney General’s Office.
The affected lawyer, who was present in the meeting, told the committee that the impostor used his identity to travel abroad and that he later had to take his parents to NADRA to prove that he was a Pakistani citizen.
The Director General of Immigration and Passports told the committee that NADRA had shared details of several such cases of forgery and that a special dashboard had now been set up to prevent fraudulent travel.
He said people often share their identity documents on WhatsApp which can lead to leaks.
He added that the case occurred in 2023 and claimed that systems have since been improved. “I guarantee that no one can get a fake passport now,” he said.
Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry said the government is working on setting up a cyber security authority and would brief the senator on NADRA’s measures.
This is not the first such warning. In September 2025, the PTA had revealed that data of around 300,000 Hajj applicants had appeared on the dark web underlining the scale of the problem.
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