Pakistan’s digital monitoring under spotlight in new report

September 09, 2025 (MLN): Pakistan’s mass surveillance and censorship capacity has been expanded through a global network of companies supplying sophisticated monitoring technologies, Amnesty International revealed in its new report “Shadows of Control”.

The year-long investigation, conducted in collaboration with Paper Trail Media, DER STANDARD, Follow the Money, The Globe and Mail, Justice For Myanmar, InterSecLab, and the Tor Project, shows how Pakistani authorities obtained advanced systems through foreign firms to strengthen state surveillance.

According to the report, the Web Monitoring System (WMS 2.0) and the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS) form the core of this apparatus.

WMS 2.0, capable of blocking internet access and specific content, was initially powered by Canadian company Sandvine (now AppLogic Networks).

After Sandvine’s divestment in 2023, technology from China’s Geedge Networks—using hardware and software from U.S.-based Niagara Networks and France’s Thales, was adopted to create the upgraded firewall.

The LIMS, mandated by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, allows state agencies, including the Armed Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to intercept communications such as calls, texts, and internet activity.

This system is enabled by German company Utimaco, working through the UAE-based Datafusion.

Amnesty’s findings indicate LIMS can monitor more than four million people at a time, with little transparency or safeguards.

Amnesty International described these technologies as “watchtowers” enabling authorities to snoop on citizens’ lives, with Secretary General Agnès Callamard warning of a “dystopian reality” severely restricting freedom of expression and access to information.

Technologist Jurre van Bergen further highlighted that the tools, funded by public money and supplied by foreign tech companies, were being used to silence dissent and harm human rights.

The report documents how WMS 1.0, first installed in 2018 with Sandvine technology, was replaced in 2023 with Geedge Networks’ system, resembling China’s “Great Firewall.”

Commercial trade data also links Pakistani firms such as Inbox Technologies, SN Skies Pvt Ltd, and A Hamson Inc. to earlier deployments.

Amnesty noted that despite contacting 20 companies and nine government entities, only a handful responded. Niagara Networks and AppLogic Networks replied to questions, while Datafusion and Utimaco responded to initial queries.

Government agencies in Germany and Canada acknowledged receipt of Amnesty’s letters but did not answer, while Pakistan provided no response.

Amnesty concluded that companies and states across jurisdictions, including Germany, France, Canada, China, the UAE, and the U.S.,have enabled Pakistan’s mass surveillance infrastructure, ignoring human rights obligations and contributing to a shrinking civic space.

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