ISLAMABAD—Pakistani authorities have decided against imposing a nationwide ban on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) amid legal concerns.
The decision comes amid legal opinion from the Law Ministry, which clarified that the government does not have legal authority to enforce such a ban under Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016.
The ban was proposed at the request of the Interior Ministry citing concerns that they were being used by militants and individuals accessing immoral and unsafe content online. Law Ministry said Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act PECA allows for blocking specific online content, but not the tools, such as VPNs, used to access it.
In light of these directives, the telecom authority required businesses and freelancers to register their VPNs by November 30, excluding individual users. By that deadline, thousands of VPNs were registered, with an additional 7,000 registrations following news of the potential ban.
Call centres, and software houses approached authorities for this while concerns grow about how a ban would negatively affect their operations.
Under latest plans, the coalition government planned distinguishing between commercial and personal VPN usage amid huge surge as X was banned after last polls.
