- Pakistan resumed VPN licensing under new framework
- Five local companies are now authorized to provide ‘legal’ VPN services
- Users can use these licensed VPNs without registering their personal IP address with the PTA.
The Pakistani government has taken another significant step in its long and often controversial campaign to regulate the internet, officially launching a licensing regime for virtual private network (VPN) providers.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) announced on November 13 that it had granted the first round of licenses to five local companies, allowing them to offer what it called “secure and legal” VPN services to the public.
The move marks the latest chapter in a multi-year effort by authorities to regulate the use of VPNs, tools that have become essential for many Pakistanis to circumvent widespread censorship.
Major social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), have been blocked intermittently or permanently for months, forcing citizens and businesses to turn to the best VPN services to freely access the global Internet.
For users, one of the immediate changes is now that they can use these specific licensed services without having to go through the previously tedious process of registering their individual IP addresses directly with the PTA.
A new framework, old concerns
While the government presents this as a measure to strengthen cybersecurity and ease regulation, the context of Pakistan’s digital landscape raises serious concerns among privacy advocates.
Previous attempts to ban “unregistered” VPNs failed due to legal challenges and public backlash, leading to this new, more structured approach of creating a pool of government-approved providers.
The central problem remains the potential for surveillance. By requiring VPN providers to be locally licensed, the government is making it easier to force these companies to monitor user activity and transmit data.
This stands in stark contrast to the policies of major international providers, many of which have strict no-logging VPN policies and have already removed their physical servers from countries with intrusive data retention laws, such as neighboring India.
Additionally, the move comes amid reports that Pakistan is working with China to develop a “Great Firewall” internet censorship system.
A system of licensed, and therefore controllable, VPNs could be a crucial part of such infrastructure, ensuring that even citizens attempting to circumvent censorship are routed to state-sanctioned channels.
What does this mean for Pakistanis?
Pakistani citizens now have a choice: use one of five newly licensed local VPN providers or continue to use unlicensed international services and risk potential disruption.
The PTA announcement touts the new system as a way to promote “regulatory facilitation, user convenience and enhanced cybersecurity in Pakistan’s digital ecosystem.” However, for many, the greatest risk lies not in malware, but in the loss of anonymity and the ability for the state to monitor their online activities.
Digital rights experts have consistently warned that such regulatory efforts could seriously harm the growth of the country’s digital economy, which relies heavily on open internet access for freelancers, IT companies and startups. Previous crackdowns on VPNs have already been blamed for throttling internet speeds and creating an unpredictable online environment for businesses.
As this new licensing regime is implemented, the key question will be whether the PTA will now more aggressively block access to international VPN providers who refuse to apply for a local license.
If this happens, the millions of Pakistanis who rely on these tools for their privacy, security and access to information will face a difficult choice between using a potentially compromised local service or being cut off from the global Internet.
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