Major General Retired Hafeez Ur Rehman, the chairman of PTA has said that VPN could be banned in the country on the orders of the government. The use of VPNs in Pakistan will be regulated under plans announced by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
During a recent meeting with the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat, PTA Chairman Maj General (retd) Hafeezur Rehman stated that once the policy is in place, it would allow only authorized VPNs to operate in Pakistan, blocking all others.
The decision was made in the wake of a spike in VPN usage since February 19, when Pakistan banned access to the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). According to Top10VPN, an independent VPN review website, the demand for VPNs has surged by 131% on February 19, two days after the ban on X.
Questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the platforms ban amid the high usage of VPNs to access X. However, the Senate committee was informed by the PTA chairman that the number of X users in Pakistan is decreased by 70% and only 30 % users are accessing the X through VPN.
The PTA chairman also highlighted that compared to other social media platforms, the number of X users in Pakistan is much lower. According to DataReportal , compared to 44.5 million Facebook users Pakistan had only 4.5 million X users. The PTA chairman warned that Ban on VPN, s in Pakistan will impact IT businesses dependent on unrestricted internet access.
This indicates that proxy networks can be used for more than just getting around blocked websites, such as X.
Minister Tarar suggested that social media revenues should be taxed in Pakistan, as they are in other countries.
Law minister Azam Nazir Tarar highlighted that around 132 million Pakistanis use social media for business purposes, yet these platforms are not taxed.
Senator Farooq H Naek recommended that in order to guarantee public access to digital services, committee members examine national and international legislation and propose measures.
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