The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) said it had received 8,070 complaints against telecommunication companies over the first five months of the year. Dr. Dhaifallah Al-Zahrani, Vice Governor of the CITC for Legal Affairs, said on Monday that number of transfer-related issues constituted 70 percent of all complaints. Complaints on bills and credit ceilings constituted 20 percent; while the issuing of the same number to two people made up 10 percent of complaints. Al-Zahrani said the CITC has set up a framework for communication operators that require them not to send promotional messages to subscribers without their permission. He said the CITC has received a large number of complaints against companies that were involved in allowing unwanted text messages to be sent. They were fined more than SR66 million in total. He also revealed a CITC plan to cooperate with security authorities to eliminate the selling of unidentified SIM cards, adding that the commission had disconnected about two million such phone lines. Those involved in selling unidentified phone lines will be referred to the relevant authorities. He said he expected the demand for information security specialists to increase by 125 percent in the near future, noting that the commission has started training about 20,000 employees of different government bodies on the subject. On electronic crimes, he said investigations have revealed that in most cases involving the stealing of personal bank information, family members or an individual living in the same house as the victim, was involved. On email theft, Al-Zahrani said that there was “not enough staff to cope with the number of requests for emails to be returned”.
