PTA Plans to Restrict VPN Usage in Pakistan

The national telecom regulator Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is planning to restrict VPN usage in Pakistan. It was revealed during a parliamentary committee meeting held yesterday in which the PTA Chairman retired Maj General Hafeezur Rehman said that the telecom regulator is set to regulate the use of  VPNs by whitelisting certain proxy networks and blocking others.

Furthermore, he stated that once the new policy is enforced, only whitelisted VPNs will be able to operate in Pakistan, while all others will be blocked. However, experts say that the regulation of VPNs could affect the IT sector in Pakistan, which depends on these networks for multiple purposes. The same thing was asked by the committee chairman Senator Rana Mahmoodul Hasan during the meeting and Rehman acknowledged that blocking VPNs entirely could “lead to the collapse of several IT businesses that operate on VPNs.”

VPN use in Pakistan has seen considerable growth in Pakistan after X was blocked in February. According to a report by VPN provider Surfshark, there was a 300 to 400 percent increase in new user acquisition rates in Pakistan following the X pan.

The X ban efficacy has been questioned by analysts as a high number of users could still access the social platform through VPNs. However, Rehman told the Senate committee that the number of X users in the country has declined by 70%. It is validated by stats from DataReportal which indicate that there were around 4.5 million X users in Pakistan in early 2024, which is a low number in comparison to other social platforms.

It is pertinent to mention here that previous government attempts to regulate VPNs by making registration mandatory have not yielded any significant results. So, we will have to wait and see whether PTA’s new strategy will be effective or not.

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