STAFF REPORT KHI: The Citizen Lab, which is based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, has found that Netsweeper filtering products have been installed on the network of Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL).

PTCL is Pakistans largest telecommunications company and also operates the Pakistan Internet Exchange Point.

The report by Citizen Lab says that the Netsweeper technology is being implemented for the purposes of political and social filtering, including websites relating to human rights, sensitive religious topics, and independent media.

In addition to using Netsweeper technology to block websites, ISPs also use other less transparent methods, such as DNS tampering. Pakistans ICT ministry had sought proposals for a URL filtering system in February 2012.

According to details, the web filter system was direly needed in Pakistan after YouTube had released a movie carrying objectionable contents and on the protest of the Pakistani government the website had refused to remove the said movie.

By Web Team

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