ISLAMABAD: 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 FBR for its systems.
In a press release , FBR clarified that IT services for Federal and Provincial tax authorities such as FBR, SRB, PRA etc are being provided by PRAL which also included maintaining the data centers.
In the data centers there are numerous software products which are being used to perform different functions such as cyber security, virtualization, firewall, etc. Key companies whose products are being utilized included Oracle, Microsoft, VMware, Kaspersky etc.
FBR has clarified that the licensed versions of these softwares have been procured. FBR has added that the original license of the product remains intact, if the support to the software expires. However, at times support for these services may not get renewed in a timely fashion due to unavoidable circumstances.
FBR has clarified that in year 2019, issue of VMware licensing was raised by US Government, which was addressed by procuring the requisite licenses after following relevant procedures as laid down in PPRA rules. For over a year no such issue regarding VMware has cropped up, FBR added.
