Government’s Firewall Plan Threatens Online Businesses

Many insiders told S&P Global that the trial implementation of a firewall has originated a slowdown of social media applications, thereby fueling discords regarding the further potential of Pakistan’s internet-smart businesses. But it has been said that high-velocity internet will be restored the minute the officials are done testing the networks.

This filtering system has been purchased and is being installed through more than Rs30 billion in the development budget set by the government. While the funds were channeled through the Ministry of Information Technology, another party is executing the project, and the MoIT is limited to bureaucratic tasks.

An official said that the firewall development, which began in January, includes acquiring a system, installing it, and currently commissioning it. During the questioning regarding the general impact on Internet businesses, the official agreed with that kind of potential, but he noticed that these kinds of businesses are not the major ones.

Another official stressed that the attempt is made to limit the role of key social influencers, whom the firewall is believed to recognize as spreaders of fake news. The government wants to limit its reach either by restricting access to such content or completely banning it. This has already been a problem and to counter it, Pakistan already has the Prevention of Electronic Crime Act 2016 and exclusive courts.

A recently advertised tender for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority was rather misleading with the current trial phase of the firewall and it seemed that the procurement process had not even begun. On July 11 tender firm for the supply, installation, and configuration of Next-Generation Firewalls and Web Application Firewalls for a period not exceeding five years firm.

However the PTA chief said that this firewall is not the previous one handed over the Rs30 billion firewall mentioned earlier. The tender is for the acquisition of firewall for PTA’s internal IT to improve security in the primary data center & DR site. PTA can ensure that it achieves layered security for its internal systems and applications by ordering four Next-Generation Firewalls and two Web Application Firewalls.