Ministry and PTA decline to provide information about the contentious Internet block
Government authorities are suppressing details regarding a contentious “firewall” they intend to construct throughout the nation to “monitor” all incoming and outgoing web traffic, despite a senator and the former caretaker prime minister confirming its deployment.
Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, Pakistan’s temporary prime minister at the time, disclosed plans by state officials to “regulate” social media in a January 26 interview with a private TV channel.
He revealed that a national firewall would be installed “very soon” throughout the nation.
Afnan Ullah Khan, a senator for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), made a comparable claim on May 3 during an interview with a local television.
In response to a question concerning Pakistan’s official three-month ban on the microblogging site X, formerly known as Twitter, the senator stated that he disagreed with the ban’s implementation and that, based on what he knew, the government intended to put in place a “firewall to monitor social media platforms.”
Over the course of two weeks, Geo Fact Check repeatedly requested comments from the minister of state for information technology and telecommunication as well as the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the nation’s telecommunications regulator.
State Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja did not reply, but Jameel Ahmed, a spokesman for the ministry, asserted that the firewall’s installation was within the “purview of the PTA.”
The PTA representative, however, informed Geo Fact Check that the firewall was a “ministry’s project” and that only they could address inquiries regarding it.
Rights activists are concerned about censorship when they don’t know enough about firewalls.
Digital rights activist Usama Khilji clarified that based on his evidence, the government’s intended “national firewall” might have been purchased from China.
Early in 2000, China launched the “Golden Shield,” also referred to as the Great Firewall. According to reports, this software allows China to analyze every data that is sent or received and to ban IP addresses and domain names that are their destination.
Khilji stated, “Now the [Pakistani] government too will have a technology through which it can censor and block websites. The government will decide what Pakistani users can and cannot access through this firewall.”
Digital investigative journalist Ramsha Jahangir noted that Pakistan appears to be using an increasing number of techniques, including DNS filtering, Internet Protocol range blocking, and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), to filter and block content on the Internet.
“These techniques disrupt the way the Internet works,” she continued. “For example, DPI necessitates analyzing every data flow, including content that is encrypted, in order to ascertain its type. Traffic is sent to a customized DNS server that blocks specific names in order to perform DNS-blocking.
Jahangir added that although there aren’t many specifics about the national firewall at this time, the government will be able to “surveil Pakistani citizens’ digital activity” virtually continuously thanks to the aforementioned filtering techniques.
Co-founder of the digital rights and civil liberties organization Bolo Bhi Farieha Aziz worries that Pakistan may experience “China-like filtering” of its internet content.
According to Aziz, this will also give rise to questions regarding online privacy and the safeguarding of users’ personal information in Pakistan. It will also significantly affect citizens’ fundamental rights, including the freedom of speech and information access.
“If content is being restricted, how is it restricted? Can data that is encrypted be decrypted? She said, “The administration won’t respond to inquiries concerning this.
I am a dedicated student currently in my seventh semester, pursuing a degree in International Relations. Alongside my academic pursuits, I am actively engaged in the professional field as a content writer at the Rangeinn website.
