STAFF REPORT IBD: The government of Pakistan has directed all Long Distance and International (LDI) operators in the country to install a filtering system for data and voice monitoring to control release of any blasphemous material in the country.

According to sources, PTA has tasked as many as 14 LDI operators to implement this monitoring system.

Sikandar Naqi, the Executive Vice President of PTCL, said that PTAs earlier system of similar capabilities was installed in 2008 for $10 million that could monitor internet traffic, the sources quoted Naqi as having said. Now, according to Naqi, this international traffic from abroad has increased to 275 Gbps so the cost of monitoring could be higher.

Media reports say that the national that spy agency will operate this national URL filtering system that will monitor all the incoming internet traffic through four landing stations of Pakistan.

The government argues that this step is direly needed to control release of blasphemous material over internet. After opposition from civil activist, authorities had agreed to review the URL Filtering System before implementation.

It is to be mentioned here that earlier the government had directed blocking blasphemous contents through the National URL Filtering System, which is now seemingly ready to get implemented in next three months or less.

By Web Team

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