ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Interior on Friday wrote a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) seeking to block illegal Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) across Pakistan, citing its threat to national security.
“VPNs are increasingly being exploited by the terrorists to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan,” the ministry’s letter stated.
The letter added, “Of late, an alarming fact has been identified, wherein VPNs are used by terrorists to obscure and conceal their communications,” the letter said. “VPNs are also being used [to] discreetly access pornographic and blasphemous contents.”
The ministry’s letter further pointed out that “Pakistan is considered as one of the countries where porn sites are frequently visited by using VPNs,” adding that these trends warrant prohibition of unauthorized VPNs to address the critical threats.
The Interior Ministry, therefore, requested to block illegal VPNs across Pakistan and demanded the regulatory authority to register VPNs till November 30, 2024.
Earlier, media reported that approximately 20 million daily attempts were made to access blocked explicit content via unregistered virtual private networks, despite government restrictions.
The authority, later in a statement, claimed it had so far blocked 100,183 URLs containing blasphemous content, as well as 844,008 pornographic websites.
