ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is spying on millions of its citizens through a phone-tapping system and a Chinese-built internet firewall that censors social media, Amnesty International alleged in a report released Tuesday.
The rights watchdog said Pakistan’s surveillance network, built with Chinese and Western technology, is one of the most comprehensive outside China and is being used to suppress dissent and free expression.
According to Amnesty, the state’s Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS) enables monitoring of at least 4 million mobile phones simultaneously, while a firewall known as WMS 2.0 can block 2 million active internet sessions at once. Together, they allow authorities to intercept calls and messages while slowing or restricting access to websites and social media.
“All four major mobile operators have been ordered to connect to LIMS,” Amnesty technologist Jurre van Berge told Reuters, suggesting the actual number of phones under surveillance could be higher.
“Mass surveillance creates a chilling effect in society, whereby people are deterred from exercising their rights, both online and offline,” the report noted.
The watchdog cited a 2024 Islamabad High Court case filed by Bushra Bibi, wife of former prime minister Imran Khan, after her private calls were leaked online. In court, regulators denied having the capacity for phone tapping but admitted ordering operators to install LIMS for “designated agencies.”
Pakistan’s ministries of technology, interior and information, as well as the telecom regulator, did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Amnesty said around 650,000 web links are currently blocked, while YouTube, Facebook and X face restrictions. The clampdown has been most severe in Balochistan, where prolonged internet blackouts have coincided with allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of Baloch and Pashtun activists — accusations officials deny.
The report tied Pakistan’s firewall supplier to Chinese firm Geedge Networks, which did not respond to requests for comment. It added that the system uses gear from US-based Niagara Networks, software from France’s Thales DIS, and servers from a Chinese IT firm. An earlier version relied on Canadian company Sandvine.
The LIMS system, Amnesty said, was produced by Germany’s Utimaco and deployed via UAE-based Datafusion. While Datafusion said it only sells to law enforcement and does not manufacture LIMS, other companies named in the report either denied misuse or did not respond.
Ben Wagner, Professor of Human Rights and Technology at Austria’s IT:U, said the combination of phone tapping and internet filtering in Pakistan was “a troubling development from a human rights perspective,” warning it pointed to deeper curbs on free speech and privacy as such tools spread.
