SHC Refrain Authorities From Internet Suspension Before General Elections

The Sindh High Court has issued a directive instructing authorities to maintain uninterrupted access to the internet for all citizens until the general elections scheduled for February 8. The court order prohibits the suspension of internet services and has requested responses from the relevant authorities, with a submission deadline of January 29.

The directive came in response to a petition filed by advocate and human rights activist Jibran Nasir, addressing the recurrent suspension of internet services in the country. In response to the recent disruptions in internet services, including outages on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) cited a “technical fault” in its optic fiber network as the cause of the nationwide internet disruption.

The PTA, through its official account on X, stated that the technical fault had been promptly rectified, and internet services were fully restored nationwide. These disruptions come amid heightened political activity in the lead-up to the upcoming general elections.

Government Issues Cybersecurity Advisory Regarding Camera Apps

The recent internet outage, which affected Google services and impacted the operations of the internet service provider PTCL, has raised concerns and prompted discussions about the reliability and resilience of internet infrastructure.

DownDetector, a global web outage tracker, reported widespread issues, highlighting the interconnected nature of internet services and the potential ripple effects of disruptions on various platforms and providers. The incident underscores the importance of maintaining robust and redundant infrastructure to minimize the impact of such outages on users and businesses.