A fake account using your name and your photographs is not a nuisance to be argued with in the comments. It is an offence, there is a route to having it removed, and there is a separate route to having the person behind it prosecuted. Both routes depend on what you do in the first hour.
Hour one: preserve the evidence
Do this before you report anything, because a reported profile can vanish within minutes and take your proof with it.
- Capture the profile URL and the numeric profile ID, not just the display name. Names change; identifiers do not.
- Take full-screen screenshots that include the URL bar, the date and the time. Crop nothing.
- Save the posts, comments and messages individually, each with its own link.
- Record who has seen it — if it has reached your employer, your family or your clients, that is the harm you will later have to prove.
- Do not engage. Do not message the account, do not threaten it, and do not ask friends to mass-report with abusive comments. All of it lands in the same file as your complaint.
Where the material is serious, having the screenshots attested, or preserved on a storage device that is handed over with the complaint, is worth the extra hour.
Route one: get it taken down
Platform removal is faster than anything the state can do, and it is free.
- Use the platform's impersonation report — not the generic “report post” button. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and LinkedIn each have a dedicated impersonation form, and each will ask for identity documents.
- Report as the person being impersonated, and upload your CNIC or passport when asked. Reports filed by friends on your behalf are consistently weaker.
- If images of you are being used, report the photographs separately as unauthorised use of your likeness.
- If the platform does not act, complain to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Section 37 of PECA gives the PTA power to require the removal or blocking of unlawful online content, and it operates a public complaint system for exactly this.
Route two: the criminal complaint
The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 covers this conduct from several directions, and which section applies decides how the case is investigated:
- Section 16 — unauthorised use of identity information. The core impersonation offence: obtaining, selling or using another person's identity information without authorisation.
- Section 20 — offences against the dignity of a natural person. Displaying or transmitting false information that harms someone's reputation.
- Section 21 — offences against the modesty of a natural person or a minor. This covers sexually explicit or morphed images, and it is treated far more seriously than the rest.
- Section 24 — cyberstalking, where there is repeated contact, monitoring or intimidation.
- Section 13 — electronic forgery, where documents or communications are fabricated.
The investigating agency is the Cybercrime Wing of the FIA. You can file at the nearest FIA cybercrime reporting centre in person, through the FIA's online complaint portal, or by calling its helpline. In practice an inquiry is opened first, the complainant is called to record a statement and produce the evidence, and an FIR follows if the inquiry supports it. Expect to attend in person more than once.
What your written complaint should contain, in this order: who you are with a CNIC copy; the exact URL and profile ID of the fake account; when you discovered it; what it has posted, said or sent; who it has contacted; what harm it has caused; whether you know or suspect who is behind it and why; and a list of the annexed evidence. A complaint that says only “a fake ID has been made of me, please take action” will sit in a queue behind the ones that do this properly.
Route three: the civil claim
Criminal proceedings punish; they do not compensate. If real damage has been done — a lost job, a broken engagement, a business relationship destroyed — a civil suit for defamation under the Defamation Ordinance, 2002, with a claim for damages and an injunction restraining further publication, runs alongside the criminal complaint. The two are independent and neither has to wait for the other.
Realistic expectations
- Platform takedown: hours to a few weeks, and usually the fastest relief you will get.
- Identifying the person behind the account: this depends on the platform responding to a formal request from the investigating agency, and it is slow. It is far quicker where the account was operated from a local number or a traceable device.
- Prosecution: months, and it needs you to remain engaged. Complainants who stop attending are the main reason these cases die.
If the fake account involves intimate images
Treat it as an emergency, not an embarrassment. Do not negotiate with the person and do not pay anything — payment has never once ended a sextortion case. Report to the FIA Cybercrime Wing immediately, keep every message including the demands, and tell someone you trust. There are dedicated helplines, and the offences involved carry the heaviest penalties in the statute. The one thing that reliably makes this worse is silence.
This article describes general remedies under Pakistani cyber law and is not advice on any particular incident. Which section of PECA applies, whether an offence is cognizable, and what relief is realistically available all depend on the facts and the evidence you have preserved. Speak to an advocate, and to the FIA Cybercrime Wing, as early as you can.