Chief whip urges MPs to use facial recognition, warns of phone hacking
Nurul Islam Moni says MPs have been targeted through hacked phone numbers, voice cloning and forged documents
Chief Whip Nurul Islam Moni has urged lawmakers to use facial-recognition devices when entering and leaving the parliament building and warned them about growing risks of phone hacking, voice cloning and document forgery.
He made the remarks during the third session of the 13th parliament today (10 September), the final day of the session.
"Facial recognition is carried out in all our lobbies. I would request all honourable members of parliament to have their faces scanned before entering the House," he said.
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As the session was concluding today, Moni also urged lawmakers to undergo facial recognition when leaving the parliament building.
The chief whip warned that several lawmakers had recently been impersonated through their phone numbers, with fraudsters allegedly sending messages seeking urgent money transfers.
"Three of our honourable members said that requests had been made to send Tk500 urgently, Tk30,000 and Tk25,000. These urgent requests came from three different phone numbers," he said.
Moni said attempts were made to contact the MPs whose numbers had allegedly been used to send the messages, but they could not be reached.
"That means the phones have been hacked," he said.
He also warned that fraudsters were using voice cloning and forged documents to deceive people.
Moni said lawmakers were also being targeted through forged signatures and fraudulent documents.
"By tampering with a signature, they are producing a document and presenting it as genuine. That has also become a problem. Many opposition members have faced this, and many members of the ruling party have faced it too," he said.
He urged all MPs to remain vigilant against such fraud and verify suspicious requests before taking any action.
Deputy Speaker Kayser Kamal later asked whether any preventive measures were being taken at the state level to curb such incidents.
Moni said he had discussed the issue with relevant authorities the previous day and that the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) was working on preventive measures.
