SIM Owner Details by Number: What Is Legal and What Is Not
Many people search for sim owner details by number expecting to type in someone else’s phone number and see their name and CNIC. That service does not exist legally in Pakistan. PTA’s SIM Verification and Management System (SVMS) only returns records for the CNIC or SIM that submits the request — it has no public search-by-number function and no third-party API.
The Legal Risk: PECA 2016 Section 16
Section 16 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016 criminalizes unauthorized access to another person’s identity information. A conviction carries up to three years imprisonment, a fine of up to Rs. 5 million, or both. Submitting someone else’s mobile number to a third-party site that claims to reveal the registered owner’s name and CNIC falls squarely within this offense, both for the site operator and, in some interpretations, the requester.
Why Third-Party "Lookup" Sites Cannot Be Genuine
- PTA's SVMS database is closed. It was never opened to third-party developers or public APIs.
- No operator (Jazz, Zong, Telenor, Ufone) permits customer-facing lookup of another subscriber's identity.
- A site that returns a name and CNIC for any number typed in is either using a leaked, illegally obtained dataset, or is fabricating plausible-looking results to collect ad revenue or payment details.
- Paying such a site does not make the transaction legal, and does not guarantee the data returned is accurate.
What You Can Legally Check
You can always check which SIMs are registered on your own CNIC. See SIM Owner Details by CNIC for the SMS 668 method, or Check SIM Owner Details Online for the cnic.sims.pk web portal. If you suspect someone has registered a SIM fraudulently using your CNIC, that same SMS 668 check will reveal it, and you can then report it to your operator or PTA.