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The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has announced its intention to block unregistered Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) across the country.
This statement was made during a Senate committee meeting on IT and Telecom, chaired by Senator Palwasha Khan.
During the meeting, the PTA Chairman highlighted the high volume of complaints regarding social media platforms, with 95% of them concerning TikTok, 65% about Meta, and 22% related to X (formerly Twitter). Responding to a question from Senator Humayun Mohmand, the Chairman said that the PTA aims to regulate the internet similarly to how it is done in Dubai and China.
He also revealed that 20,500 individuals have already registered their VPNs with the authority. A campaign is underway to encourage more VPN registrations, warning that unregistered VPNs will eventually be blocked.
To ensure seamless business operations for industries like software houses, call centers, freelancers, and foreign missions, the PTA has introduced a simplified “one window” registration process. This service, available on the PTA and Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) websites, has enabled the registration of over 20,000 IPs since 2020.
