The Pakistani government has recently started ramping up its surveillance efforts to monitor and track the online activity of citizens in the country.
Last month, the Pakistani security agencies received a green light to openly listen to citizens’ phone calls, intercept WhatsApp messages and more. The PTA also recently completed its firewall trial to control social media. While we don’t have the details on what software Pakistan is using to do so or how it’s operating, Pakistan is reportedly acquiring this technology from several firms across the globe.
According to Surveillance Watch, which tracks data from surveillance companies and the countries using them, Pakistan is acquiring spyware and other tracking software from over 15 companies. These companies originate from several countries including the US, China and even Israel.
The company shows an interactive map of every country acquiring spying services from across the globe. Here is how the website is described on its About page:
Surveillance Watch is an interactive map that documents the hidden connections within the opaque surveillance industry. Founded by privacy advocates, most of whom were personally harmed by surveillance tech, our mission is to shed light on the companies profiting from this exploitation with significant risk to our lives.
You can find Pakistan in the list of “Known Targets” on the website, which shows the name of each firm providing spyware tech to Pakistan. Some notorious names include Israel’s Q Cyber Technologies SARL, which is the parent company of the NSO Group that sells Pegasus, one of the most advanced hacking tools available today. Other names include Predator, Gamma Group, I-Soon, and many others.
These companies are providing facial recognition tech, spyware for smartphones, surveillance through video, voice-to-text transcription for intercepted phone calls, deep packet inspection, and a lot more. You can check out the website for yourself here.