Pakistani authorities allegedly spying on millions through mass surveillance systems: Amnesty report.
Using the LIMS system, the authorities only need a person’s phone number, the report said.
All four major mobile operators have been ordered to connect to LIMS, Amnesty technologist Jurre van Berge told Reuters.
Telecommunications providers were “under an obligation to ensure that up to two per cent of their entire consumer base can be surveilled.“ PTA
ISLAMABAD ( WEB NEWS )
Pakistan authorities have allegedly been surveilling over four million of its citizens, via tools of mass surveillance, acquired from private foreign companies, further clamping down on the country’s cyber landscape, an Amnesty International report revealed on Tuesday. The report, titled “Shadows of Control: Censorship and Mass Surveillance in Pakistan“ alleged that “Pakistani authorities have continued to unlawfully surveil the country’s citizens, including regular citizens, journalists, as well as prominent politicians.”
The rights watchdog stated that Pakistani authorities allegedly “use the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS) to surveil a significant portion of the population’s digital activity through Pakistani telecommunications providers.”
The number of phones under surveillance could be higher as all four major mobile operators have been ordered to connect to LIMS, Amnesty technologist Jurre van Berge told Reuters.
Authorities also employ a firewall known as WMS 2.0 that inspects internet traffic and can block two million active sessions at a time, Amnesty alleged, further enhancing the system of surveillance.
LIMS is a product sold by a German company called Ultimaco, which “allows for the classification of internet traffic and mobile communications such as text messaging and voice and [stores] this data for authorities to go through”.
The technology has been in use in Pakistan since 2007.
According to its findings, “Utimaco’s LIMS allows the authorities to sift through the telecommunications provider subscriber data”.
Using the LIMS system, the authorities only need a person’s phone number, the report said.
The report went on to explain that this data is then “made accessible through a Monitoring Centre Next Generation (McNG)”.
According to the report, “McNG is a product by Datafusion, formerly Trovicor, which allows authorities to sift through the material collected by LIMS.” Using the McNG system, “operators can see [who has] been calling whom, when this happened, what websites were browsed, if someone might’ve used WhatsApp or a VPN and their location”.
The report attributed the unchecked deployment of mass surveillance to a lack of technical and legal safeguards.
Amnesty recalled that the workings of the LIMS system came to light in the case of Bushra Bibi vs Federation of Pakistan, filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), after “a series of prominent cases of interception and leaking of audio recordings of calls between politicians and public figures became public” between 2022 and 2023. The case was filed to “investigate these recordings and the legality of interception of telecoms”. As a result, it was disclosed that the PTA had issued directions to telecom licensees to “finance, import and install LIMS at a designated place for the use of designated agencies“, the report said.
In its assessment, the amnesty added that the use of technology to curb freedom and the right to privacy contributes to a “chilling effect and a shrinking of civic space in the country”.
Calling for safeguards to protect citizens’ data, the rights body pointed out that Pakistan’s current data systems were highly centralised, leaving citizens vulnerable to such surveillance.
It cautioned that the “scope of this surveillance and its interconnectedness is expected to increase with the enactment of the Digital Nation Pakistan Act 2025”.
The Digital Nation Pakistan Act 2025 aims to create a digital identity for citizens, to centralise social, economic, and governance data.
Internet censorship, shutdowns
According to the report, the mass surveillance in Pakistan works in conjunction with frequent internet censorship, made possible via the use of the Web Monitoring System (WMS). “Internet censorship involves blocking specific content on the internet, slowing down and controlling internet speeds, or shutting down the internet altogether,” it said.
The watchdog noted that the first iteration of the WMS was installed in Pakistan in 2018 by a company called Sandvine; however, according to Amnesty’s investigation, the previous WMS was replaced by a more advanced system produced by a Chinese company, Geedge Networks.
Amnesty went on to say that the new technology was a commercialised version of China’s “Great Firewall”, which is a censorship tool used by the Chinese government.
The installation of the system was ensured with the help of various foreign companies, including US-based Niagara Networks, French company Thales, and Chinese company New H3C Technologies, it said.
Furthermore, the report mentioned that the PTA had “blocked more than 1.4 million URLs since the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) was passed in 2016”.
The rights watchdog noted that the process of blocking and removing content has always been “marked by opacity and arbitrariness”.
It said that the users were “rarely provided any notice by the PTA” before the blocking of content, and became aware of it only when they were unable to access the said content.
Regarding internet shutdowns, Amnesty noted that “the pattern of shutting down mobile and internet services in the name of maintaining law and order has become a regular occurrence”.
Citing a report by the ‘Keep it On’ coalition, Amnesty said that between 2016 and 2024, Pakistan experienced at least 77 internet shutdown incidents, with 24 of these in 2024 alone.
These included selective blocking of specific sites or content, and “bandwidth throttling” especially in the time leading up to the 2024 general elections, as well as during virtual rallies held by the PTI.
Citing data from the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), Amnesty showcased that “just before the general election on 8 February 2024, OONI measurements confirm that several websites were blocked, including the opposition PTI party website and the PTI candidates’ website, as well as Fact Focus, an investigative news outlet”.
Amnesty said that “this shows that the new firewall is being used effectively by Pakistani telecommunications providers to actively block crucial communication channels.”
Recalling the recent internet shutdown in Balochistan and similar incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Amnesty highlighted that “these shutdowns are often used to disrupt protests and political rallies”.
As per Amnesty’s assessment, the four companies named in the report — Geedge Networks, Utimaco, Datafusion and Niagara Networks — allegedly “contributed to human rights abuse in Pakistan by facilitating mass surveillance”.
“Mass surveillance and unlawful censorship by the Pakistani authorities represent systemic abuses of fundamental human rights,” the rights body said.
Amnesty called for “urgent action” to prevent any further harm, stressing that the “unchecked digital repression” will limit space for democracy.
