Last month, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) heard that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had entrusted finance, import and financing to telecom companies in an investigation related to the illegal surveillance of former prime minister Bushra Imran Khan. build a system that allows for mass surveillance of citizens’ data.
The system, called the Legal Licensing Management System (LIMS), allows access to private messages, video/audio content, call logs and websites, according to court documents.
In an order issued over the weekend of June 26, IHC Justice Babar Sattar said the LIMS was being used by “designated agencies” for surveillance purposes.
The PTA directive calls for facilitating the monitoring of 2% of the customer base, which could affect more than four million citizens at any one time.
Justice Sattar said mass surveillance has no legal basis and operates without judicial or executive oversight. While LIMS allows agencies to access SMS, call data and encrypted data, it does not provide automatic encryption for encrypted data.
The PTA did not respond to Geo.tv’s request for comment.
How does LIMS work?
At the behest of the IHC, “designated” law enforcement agencies initiate track-and-trace requests for customer information.
The request is then automatically transferred to the LIMS, after which personal information such as SMS and telephone data of the citizen on the telecommunications network is reported to the agency.
“Through such surveillance, voice calls made by subscribers can be heard and replayed,” court documents state, “and SMS messages can be read. consumers, monitored and stored.” can.”
