IT industry body protests NCCIA raids on software firms

Pakistan's software houses association has challenged a rising number of raids by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency on software and IT-enabled services companies, saying firms are being searched in a crackdown meant for scam centres. P@SHA said member companies had complained of teams entering offices without showing a warrant, staff questioned for hours, and laptops, servers and mobile phones taken away even where nothing unlawful was found.

The association asked the agency to separate legitimate call centres and IT firms from operations that defraud people in Pakistan and abroad, arguing that call centres are a legitimate business and scam centres are not call centres.

In its statement, P@SHA said the industry supports lawful, evidence-based action against fraud networks and that such centres damage the country's reputation and its exporters. It said investigations must follow due process, transparency and proportionality.

The association proposed a joint coordination and grievance committee bringing together the NCCIA, P@SHA, the Ministry of IT and Telecom and the Pakistan Software Export Board to review complaints, share intelligence on scam operators and agree standard operating procedures for raids on registered firms.

It asked the NCCIA to carry out all raids on registered IT companies under court warrants and established SOPs, to verify a company's registration with the PSEB and P@SHA before acting, and to conduct forensic imaging on site instead of seizing equipment. Devices unrelated to an investigation should be returned within seven days, it said. It also called for an end to harassment and physical mistreatment of employees, particularly women, and to interference with CCTV systems and digital footage.

P@SHA chairman Dr Shoab Ahmed Khan said every dollar earned by the industry was built on trust. A foreign client who learns that its vendor's office was raided and its servers seized will not wait for a forensic report, he said, and may move the contract to India, the Philippines or Eastern Europe.

"Fraudsters may lose a call centre, but Pakistan loses an entire market," he said. He added that the association would work with the NCCIA to root out scam networks and asked only that the law be enforced with precision, so that the honest majority of the industry is protected rather than punished.

P@SHA said the NCCIA has itself acknowledged that some fraud operators register their businesses as IT companies, which it said makes careful verification necessary instead of treating every office with computers and night-shift staff as suspect.

IT exports reached a record $4.6 billion in FY2025-26, up from $3.8 billion a year earlier, according to TechJuice, which also reported that the association sought an urgent meeting with the minister for IT and telecom, the interior ministry and the NCCIA director general. P@SHA said it would share specific cases reported by member companies with the authorities. The government has set an export target of $10 billion by FY2029 under Uraan Pakistan.