Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Major General (R) Hafeezur Rehman on Monday said the regulator will block all illegal virtual private networks (VPNs) in Pakistan.
He said this while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on IT and Telecom in Islamabad today. The chairman briefed the committee that the regulator has already registered 20,500 VPNs and is actively working to increase this number.
Despite growing concerns about unauthorized VPN usage, particularly for accessing blocked platforms like X (formerly Twitter), the PTA chairman stressed that it will not take immediate action against illegal VPNs but will be more aggressive against the issue once registration is more comprehensive.
On the future of X in Pakistan, the Interior Ministry officials said that its case is being heard at Islamabad, Sindh, and Lahore High Courts. Questions were also raised during the Senate meeting about the legality of using VPNs to access X. Interior Ministry officials confirmed that using VPNs to access X is illegal. To this, a senator asked why the Prime Minister was using VPN to post his thoughts.
Another Senator further inquired why Pakistan cannot fully block X if it is already restricted in the country. PTA officials and representatives of the federal government were unable to provide a convincing explanation in this regard.
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