Activists ask government to explain the ban on Telegram
Privacy is a great concern among the people these days. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has instructed PTCL last year in November to ban the app Telegram. Telegram is a popular messaging service which has end-to-end encryption and protects user privacy. It is similar to the app signal. The app in recent news hit around 200 million users on a global scale, but it is astonishing to note that it remains blocked in Pakistan. Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) has put forth the demand to the government of Pakistan to justify the ban on the app. It has asked for transparency on the issue and released a statement in this regard.
The organization has expressed concern towards banning of the messaging app and limiting access of users to safe medium of communication-that aren’t susceptible to third part intervention. DRF noticed that the ban spans across all networks in the country while, only PTCL notified the users of the restrictions in place for the app. There hasn’t been a public notification issued on the banning of the cloud based messaging app. Telegram does not let its security be breached and user privacy violated, where many other popular apps are under the heat of their data base being breached. DRF has quoted,
“We believe that such a decision hinders citizen’s freedom of expression, which is a base and fundamental right as per Article 19 of our Constitution. It is a fundamental right recognized in countries the world over and was also recognized by ours through ratification of international treaties.”
Meanwhile, public authorities have yet to issue a statement. The matter further escalates to the rights people in Pakistan have over their data and overall privacy in communication medium.
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