Business Desk 
Jul 14, 2025
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has temporarily halted the manual entry option for auction vehicles within WEBOC (Web-Based One Customs) following a serious data misuse incident in which individuals used FBR IDs to enter information for auctioned vehicles.
WeBOC is the digital platform created by Pakistan Customs as an 'end-to-end' system for exporting, importing and auctioning of customs data. A portion of the system allows for manual or unverified data entry for auction vehicles.
It has now come to light that the module created for this purpose for counsel group and appraiser group members was misused in some fashion, utilising official IDs for access roles and responsibilities of Customs employees, which gives serious cause for concern on FBR data security and the procedural mishaps of not detecting these irregularities until now.
Records indicate the Directorate General of Reforms and Automation (Digitisation) at Customs House Karachi put a stop to the above areas after they identified strange activity associated with some of the assigned user IDs, which are assigned to Assistant and Deputy Collectors (AC/DC) of Customs.
Particulars identified by the IT Division showed that user IDs were created by MIS officers in multiple cities, and torture was provided in the WEBOC system to input auction data into the system without clearance.
The organisation Directorate of IOCO Lahore followed up to identify two of the user IDs, Zeeshan (CUS-3540517) and Yousuf Khan (CUS-3135725), registered in April 2025, and shut down on July 08, and these user IDs entered auction data for 24 vehicles.
Another user ID, Waqas Khattak (CUS-2914393), registered in Faisalabad during February 2025, was used to input data for 31 vehicles. Only this user ID identification we wrongfully used data in MCC Appraisement West Karachi jurisdiction (MCC Appraisement West Karachi has no mandate to do any auction for customs).
Notably, 1,873 auctioned vehicles have been entered through the now-deactivated module so far.
In response, the FBR has deactivated the manual vehicle auction module in WEBOC to stop any further unauthorised entries. Officials have now recommended switching all auction activity to the new E-Auction Module, a digital platform aimed at ensuring transparency, reducing fraud, and creating a proper digital record of all vehicle auctions.
