Pakistan To Start Monitoring All Emails, Phone Calls & 'Other Communications' With Foreigners

from the for-whose-safety? dept

You may remember that, a year ago, Pakistan announced they were banning encryption online. Not that any such ban would likely to be effective, but it seems to fit in with the claim that the government has told PTCL, the Pakistani telco, that within 90 days it must monitor basically all communications that go across the Pakistani border:

All emails, telephone calls and other communications with the rest of the world will begin to be monitored within 90 days at a cost of million of dollars, according to a deadline given by the government to operators including PTCL.

The government has assigned PTCL and other operators to install monitoring equipment by the end of this year for checking voice and email communications from abroad and the services of the country’s spy agency will be used basically to check and curb blasphemous and obscene websites on the Internet.

Yeah, sure, just to "curb blasphemous and obscene websites." I'm sure all that monitoring won't be abused otherwise at all... right? Somehow, despite that earlier ban, I'm guessing that encryption technologies just became a lot more popular in Pakistan.

Filed Under: encryption, monitoring, pakistan, surveillance
Companies: ptcl