VPN used by terrorists to facilitate violent activities’, claims Interior Ministry

Islamabad: The Interior Ministry has demanded the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block all the “illegal VPNs” in country, claiming their use by terrorists to facilitate violent activities and to access pornographic and blasphemous content.

The PTA has said on Wednesday that VPN usage would be restricted in the future to curb access to pornographic content, following a disruption that rendered VPNs dysfunctional across the country on Sunday.

PTA had claimed it had so far blocked 100,183 URLs containing blasphemous content, as well as 844,008 pornographic websites. It also claimed that approximately 20 million attempts were made from within the country to access pornographic websites daily, which were blocked at the international gateway level.

The statement by PTA highlighting its performance came a day after the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony wrote to the regulator, asking it to block blasphemous and pornographic content.

“VPNs are increasingly being exploited by the terrorists to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan,” said interior ministry in a letter to PTA on Friday.

“Of late, an alarming fact has been identified, wherein VPNs are used by terrorists to obscure and conceal their communications,” the letter said. “VPNs are also being used [to] discreetly access pornographic and blasphemous contents.”

“It is pointed out that Pakistan is considered as one of the leading country in terms of visiting porn sites using VPNs,” the letter said, adding that these trends warranted the prohibition of unauthorised VPNs to address the critical threats.

“It is, therefore, requested to block illegal VPNs across Pakistan so that legitimate/registered VPN users are not affected.”