PSEB exposes personal data of thousands of students

Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and ICT R&D have recently launched Prime Minister’s ICT Internship Program.

Though there were positive intentions behind this internship program, a minor error in PSEB’s enactment has now put the privacy as well as security of thousands of interns and graduates crosswise the country at stake.

The Prime Minister’s ICT Internship Program is being misused and is a possible scam threat.

A tool is just as good or bad as its consumer. This belief accurately defines what is presently happening with the Prime Minister’s ICT Internship Program.

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About Internship Program

Prime Minister’s ICT Internship Program is targeted to assist large number of young graduates in obtaining internships for hands on experience in their fields while also offering financial relief.

As per PSEB, the main objective of this program is to “keep the graduates engaged as well as interested in obtaining additional knowledge and real work life experiences, so facilitating their improved employability in the state.”

All these graduates are expected to be placed at IT firms, departments in the telecommunication sector, banks as well as other relevant tech-centric organizations or software houses.

The selected IT graduates will get Rs. 15,000 from the government monthly.

These internships will be given to candidates for almost 6 months.

Misuse of the Program

Actually, there is nothing wrong along with this ICT internship program. But the lack of control and mishandling has led to the ill use of PSEB’s portal because it leaks the data of all candidates to literally anyone.

Anyone can register themselves without any proper check, i.e. even individuals can register along with PSEB via website. When it’s done, they can get easy access on all the resumes and contact information of the registered applicants.

Because of the non-availability of strict management, anyone can register, get easy access on people’s private information and even send fake messages by referring the internship application from the candidates.

The candidates can be called anywhere for an ‘interview’, be requested to send out application processing fees to the organizations and the aspirants can even be cheated through via some other means.

To solve this issue, which has been misused by numerous companies up till now, PSEB requires implementing a detailed registration procedure which can authenticate the authenticity of the company and it has the capability to actually hire the internees.

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The board also requires regulating messages from the organizations and certifying that whatever the companies are communicating to the aspirants causes no issues.

As a security measure, it requires to make sure that the firms do not communicate along with the graduates via other channels.

In its place, it should utilizes its own sanctioned communication means to forward the firm requirements to the candidates.

According to PSEB, the issue has now been fixed.