Amnesty International’s latest report, “Shadows of Control”, has shed alarming light on Pakistan’s rapidly expanding system of mass surveillance and online censorship, highlighting how the country is building a sophisticated digital monitoring architecture with critical support from foreign technology companies based in China, North America, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates.

According to Amnesty, Pakistan’s surveillance regime has evolved into a deeply entrenched and opaque mechanism of control that places millions of citizens under constant watch, significantly eroding freedom of expression and the right to privacy.

The investigation, conducted over a year in collaboration with media and human rights organisations, documents how Pakistani authorities have institutionalised two core systems— the Web Monitoring System (WMS 2.0) and the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS)— to implement both blanket censorship and targeted surveillance without meaningful safeguards or judicial oversight.

The Web Monitoring System 2.0 functions as a nationwide firewall comparable in scale to China’s “Great Firewall,” giving Pakistan the ability to block entire segments of the internet or specific content it unilaterally deems unlawful.

This system, which originated from an earlier firewall introduced in 2018, was initially powered by the Canadian firm Sandvine (later rebranded as AppLogic Networks). When Sandvine exited Pakistan in 2023 amid scrutiny, Islamabad upgraded to a more advanced version supplied by Beijing-based Geedge Networks.

Complementary hardware and software components were reportedly delivered by US-based Niagara Networks and the French aerospace and security giant Thales.

Amnesty identifies this collaboration as emblematic of the way foreign firms have directly enabled Pakistan’s technical capacity to choke access to digital spaces, thereby restricting citizens’ ability to freely communicate or access information online.

In parallel, the Lawful Intercept Management System has been woven across Pakistan’s telecom networks as a mandatory feature imposed by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

More intrusive than WMS 2.0, LIMS gives security bodies including the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Armed Forces sweeping powers to intercept phone conversations, access messaging platforms, and track browsing patterns in real time.

According to Amnesty, the core interception technology for LIMS originates from German company Utimaco and the Emirati firm Datafusion. This enables authorities to conduct targeted dragnet surveillance, simultaneously tracking millions of individuals—up to four million at a time—without requiring judicial warrants or oversight.

Amnesty emphasises that, while the technology was originally developed with the intention of aiding lawful criminal investigations, in Pakistan it has been repurposed into a tool for political and social control, disproportionately targeting journalists, activists, and civil society organisations.

The report vividly illustrates the chilling human cost of this surveillance regime by documenting testimonies from journalists and critics of the government. One journalist recounted how, after publishing an exposé on corruption, he experienced relentless digital monitoring— from intercepted calls and emails to WhatsApp conversations being scrutinised by officials.

Friends, sources, and even family members he contacted were subsequently questioned by authorities, forcing him into self-censorship and even cutting off contact with close relatives out of fear for their safety.

Such experiences, Amnesty argues, have created a climate of pervasive fear in which dissenting voices are silenced not only by direct repression but also through psychological intimidation and isolation, making normal civic activism nearly impossible.

Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard described the unfolding situation in Pakistan as “dystopian,” underscoring that ordinary citizens are unwittingly subjected to “watchtower-like” scrutiny whereby every email, text, call, and search can be monitored.

What renders this system especially concerning, she stressed, is the use of taxpayer funds to procure foreign-developed technologies that systematically undermine rights. Far from being a safeguard against crime, Pakistan’s surveillance apparatus has institutionalised secrecy and repression, criminalising dissent and weaponizing communications infrastructure against society’s most vulnerable voices.

The report strongly criticises the role of global technology companies that continue to profit from contracts with the Pakistani state while failing to meet their international human rights obligations. Of the 20 firms contacted by Amnesty during the investigation, only Niagara Networks and AppLogic Networks provided full responses, while Utimaco and Datafusion gave partial replies but evaded substantive engagement on the findings.

Meanwhile, neither Pakistan’s government nor export control bodies in Germany and Canada provided meaningful clarifications, raising concerns about weak regulatory oversight surrounding the trade in surveillance technology.

Amnesty warned that, by commercialising censorship models such as China’s “Great Firewall” through firms like Geedge Networks, the international community is effectively enabling authoritarian-style digital oppression to spread far beyond its original geopolitical context.

Amnesty declares Pakistan’s mass surveillance and censorship framework not only unlawful under international human rights standards but also morally indefensible.

By embedding sweeping data interception systems and blanket censorship mechanisms across its national telecom and internet infrastructure—often in secrecy and without democratic accountability—Pakistan has crossed a dangerous threshold toward institutionalised repression.

Amnesty urges the global community to implement stricter export regulations on surveillance technologies, enforce corporate accountability measures, and prevent the proliferation of digital tools that facilitate authoritarian control.

Without sustained international scrutiny and decisive action, the report warns, Pakistan’s digital dystopia will continue to erode the fundamental freedoms of its citizens, setting a troubling precedent for the wider region.

Based On ANI Report