FBR issues clarification on use of pirated software

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has issued a clarification on the news aired by a leading news channel regarding use of pirated software by the revenue board for its systems.

The FBR clarified that the IT services for the federal and provincial tax authorities such as FBR, Sindh Revenue Board (SRB), Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), etc, are being provided by the Pakistan Revenue Automated Pvt Limited (PRAL), which also includes maintaining the data centres.

In the data centres there are numerous software products, which are being used to perform different functions such as cyber security, virtualisation, firewall, etc, it said.

Key companies whose products are being utilised included Oracle, Microsoft, VMware, Kaspersky, etc.

The FBR clarified that the licensed versions of these software have been procured. It also said the original licence of the product remains intact, if the support to the software expires.

However, at times the support for these services may not get renewed in a timely fashion due to unavoidable circumstances.

The FBR also clarified that in 2019, the issue of VMware licensing was raised by the US government, which was addressed by procuring the requisite licences after following the relevant procedures as laid down in the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules.

For over a year no such issue regarding VMware has cropped up, the FBR added.