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Old Thursday, September 01, 2016
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Default Violation of privacy in FPSC admission certificate online retrieval system

I worte the following letter to secretary FPSC. Contents are self explanatory. Please tell me what you think.

"Mr. Haseeb Athar
Secretary,
Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC),
F-5/1 Aga Khan road,
Islamabad.

Sub: Violation of privacy in FPSC admission certificate online retrieval system

Dear sir,
I am to state that I have been an applicant and candidate for various positions advertised by FPSC, including the CSS examination held in 2016. When a candidate applies for a position, one desires that his / her application and candidature should remain personal and confidential as one has to face embarrassment if colleagues and family find out failure in this endeavor. Announcement of the successful candidates is perfectly okay but the preservation of privacy of the candidates who could not is also extremely important. I wish to bring to your kind notice that FPSC's current system allows anyone with a candidate's CNIC number to retrieve that candidate's admission certificate. This is a loophole in the system that creates scope for invasion of privacy as well as sabotage.

2. All the students who were awarded laptops under the PM Nawaz Sharif's Laptop Scheme were required to submit their personal information to HEC. HEC has, in blatant disregard for privacy, published CNIC numbers of all the students who benefitted from this scheme for consumption of the general public. As a result, people have started using the CNIC number obtained from HEC's list to retrieve FPSC's admission certificates as all that is required is the applicant's CNIC number. I myself have been a victim of this invasion of privacy when multiple people retrieved my CSS admission certificate as well as those of various test phases. Moreover, this causes a security threat as someone stalking a female candidate may be able to know exactly where she might be found by checking the location of the test centre and time of the test. Hence, it is a security threat for vulnerable people. Moreover, if someone wants to sabotage my candidature for a particular post due to professional jealousy or enmity, all they need to do is punch in my CNIC and submit a bogus application so that I may not be able to submit my own application, thereby wasting my opportunity to apply for the position.

3. I humbly pray to you to take action and direct the concerned authorities to plug this loophole. I met Web. Manager, FPSC and explained the issue to him as well who was understanding and sympathetic to my position on the matter. A relatively simple solution to this problem is to add the date of expiration of CNIC as a necessary field in the application process both at the time of application submission and admission certificate retrieval. This will ensure that only the candidate, who is in physical possession of his/her CNIC, will be able to retrieve the admission certificate. Moreover, the proposed solution is also economical and will require very little effort on part of FPSC's IT team. Another better and foolproof alternative is to only allow retrieval of admission certificates using the tracking ID provided by FPSC at application submission. It is a unique number issued to the applicant that is only known to the candidate, but this proposal may require some effort on part of the IT team. I pray to you that something may be done to solve this problem before the CSS 2017 exam.

4. My services are at your disposal if they are needed. I would be more than happy to appear at FPSC HQ and volunteer free of cost if I can help in any way.
Regards,
Dt: 1st September 2016

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