Skip to main content

Pakistani authorities allegedly spying on millions through mass surveillance systems: Amnesty report

Pakistani authorities have 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“, in its findings, reported that Pakistani authorities have continued to unlawfully surveil the country’s citizens, including regular citizens, journalists, as well as prominent politicians.

In its findings, the rights watchdog stated that, “the Armed Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) 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.

Per the report, telecommunications providers are “under an obligation to ensure that up to 2 per cent of their entire consumer base can be surveilled,“ according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

Authorities also employ a firewall known as WMS 2.0 that inspects internet traffic and can block 2 million active sessions at a time, Amnesty said, 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.

According to its findings, “Utimaco’s LIMS allows the authorities to sift through the telecommunications provider subscriber data.”

Using the LIMS system, the authorities only need a person’s phone number, the report said.

The report went on to explain that this data is then “made accessible through a Monitoring Centre Next Generation (McNG).”

According to the report, “McNG is a product by Datafusion, formerly Trovicor, which allows authorities to sift through the material collected by LIMS.” Using the McNG system, “operators can see [who has] been calling whom, when this happened, what websites were browsed, if someone might’ve used WhatsApp or a VPN and their location.”

The report attributed the unchecked deployment of mass surveillance to a lack of technical and legal safeguards.

Amnesty recalled that the workings of the LIMS system came to light in the case of Bushra Imran Khan vs Federation of Pakistan, filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), after “a series of prominent cases of interception and leaking of audio recordings of calls between politicians and public figures became public in the period between 2022 and 2023.”

The case was filed to “investigate these recordings and the legality of interception of telecoms.”

With additional input from Reuters.

More to follow



from Dawn - Home https://ift.tt/cQo5j9A
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani skipping home run derby

Baseball’s biggest star is skipping the home run derby. Shohei Ohtani confirmed after Tuesday’s win over the Diamondbacks that he will not be participating as he continues to rehab an elbow injury that has prevented him from pitching this season. “There’s been some conversations going on,” Ohtani said, according to Juan Toribio of MLB.com . “I’m in the middle of my rehab progression, so it’s not going to look like I’ll be participating.” Manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani and the club reached the decision together. Ohtani signed a historic 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers after winning his second AL MVP award last season with the Angels. Despite his elbow injury, he has served as the Dodgers’ primary DH this season and been one of the most productive hitters in baseball. Ohtani entered Tuesday hitting .316/.399/.635 with a 1.034 OPS. He hit his NL-leading 27th home run in the win. Ohtani had previously participated in the Derby in 2021. Last season’s champion, Vlad...
Post a Comment
Read more

Heathrow resumes operations as global airlines scramble after shutdown

London’s Heathrow Airport resumed full operations on Saturday, a day after a fire knocked out its power supply and shut Europe’s busiest airport, causing global travel chaos. The travel industry was scrambling to reroute passengers and fix battered airline schedules after the huge fire at an electrical substation serving the airport. Some flights had resumed on Friday evening, but the shuttering of the world’s fifth-busiest airport for most of the day left tens of thousands searching for scarce hotel rooms and replacement seats while airlines tried to return jets and crew to bases. Teams were working across the airport to support passengers affected by the outage, a Heathrow spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through the airport,” the spokesperson said. The travel industry, facing the prospect of a financial ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pakistan flag installed at UNSC as country becomes non-permanent member for 8th time

The Pakistani national flag was installed in front of the United Nations Security Council chamber, as the country began its eighth term as a non-permanent member (2025-26) of the 15-member body, according to a press release issued by the Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the United Nations on Thursday. Pakistan on Wednesday began a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Elected in June to replace Japan, Pakistan now occupies one of the two Asia-Pacific seats on the UNSC. It will preside over the council in July, a key opportunity to set the agenda and foster dialogue. View this post on Instagram This marks Pakistan’s eighth term on the council, providing an opportunity to shape discussions on pivotal international issues, but also posing significant challenges. “As part of the joining ceremony, flags of the five new incoming non-permanent members — Pakistan, Denmark, Greece, Panam...
Post a Comment
Read more