Smoke and Mirrors

Pakistani authorities have allegedly been surveilling over four million of its citizens, via tools of mass surveillance, acquired from private foreign companies, further clamping down on the country’s cyber landscape, an Amnesty International report revealed on Tuesday.

The report, titled “Shadows of Control: Censorship and Mass Surveillance in Pakistan“ alleged that “Pakistani authorities have continued to unlawfully surveil the country’s citizens, including regular citizens, journalists, as well as prominent politicians.”

The rights watchdog stated that Pakistani authorities allegedly “use the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS) to surveil a significant portion of the population’s digital activity through Pakistani telecommunications providers.”

The number of phones under surveillance could be higher as all four major mobile operators have been ordered to connect to LIMS, Amnesty technologist Jurre van Berge told Reuters.

The report, citing the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), said that telecommunications providers were “under an obligation to ensure that up to two per cent of their entire consumer base can be surveilled.“

Authorities also employ a firewall known as WMS 2.0 that inspects internet traffic and can block two million active sessions at a time, Amnesty alleged, further enhancing the system of surveillance.

LIMS is a product sold by a German company called Ultimaco, which “allows for the classification of internet traffic and mobile communications such as text messaging and voice and [stores] this data for authorities to go through”.

The technology has been in use in Pakistan since 2007.

- DAWN