A private organization RIKSOF with their all their commercial interests launched a so called online degree verification service while putting the privacy of Pakistani graduates at risk which may lead to identity theft and other problems. The company and its service is operating from Karachi, Pakistan. The said services have a very ambiguous privacy policy as it state that
“We save your information on our secure database servers as required by the Data Protection Act 1998,”
A screenshot of the web page is given for a reference.
It also stat that
United Arab Emirates law shall apply to these Terms, notwithstanding the jurisdiction where you are based. You irrevocably agree that the courts of UAE shall have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute which may arise out of, under, or in connection with these Terms.
As per our best knowledge there is no Data Protection Act 1998 in Pakistan in operation however in order to confirm we asked the RISKOF. We also inquired if they are working in Pakistan and providing services to Pakistani nationals why the UAE laws should apply? We received a very unsatisfactory reply from Mr. Khurram at RISKOF regarding the question about data protection and legal jurisdiction
Although working and based in Pakistan, we are also providing services to customers outside Pakistan. Pakistani laws concerning electronic transactions and data are still evolving. UAE law provides the confidence our customers need.
This is very strange that a company providing verification of Pakistani degrees do not trust on Pakistani laws. How we can trust on their service? Their are also some more serious questions about their services
1. They mentioned they will maintain a “database of degrees” on their website. What is the security of that DATA? What is reliability of that DATA ? Can they keep a copy of some one’s degree in their database without their consent?
2. What is reliability of their verification services? Of course they have to get this data from the respective universities but who will authenticate that the this company is passing on the same data to end user as received from the university? Are not their any chances that this data can get tempered ? i.e University says this degree is fake and somebody at this company for some reasons says this degree is original?
There is no information about the company managment/physical address available at their about us page
DO WE REALLY NEED A THIRD PARTY VERIFICATION SERVICE?
Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) is doing a great job regarding the verification of degrees. They are already providing a central role and one point contact for degree verification service from all the Universities in Pakistan. The best thing about HEC is that every one have a trust on their services. Regarding the speed of the attestation services HEC is also providing a very urgent and quick services. HEC is already providing their services to many consulates as well. It may be even better that HEC itself start providing online degree verification without involving any third party.
Since private companies have their own commercial interest they can easily sell any information to any party for any purpose. HEC and Pakistani Public Universities should not either allow any third part to play with degrees and other confidential data or they should strictly monitor any such activity.
What the hell is going on here
they have no idea what is privacy in pakistan ….
Who ever is the Author of this article, I would say thanks to him for providing an information about this third party company. All the question raised in this article are absolutely correct and need to be answered. At lease I will not use this online service to make my information insecure. Yes, HEC is already doing good Job. We don’t need such an online degree verification service.