Unregistered VPNs to be blocked from 01 December

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has reportedly decided to block access to all the unregistered VPNs from 01 December. All the commercial entities, embassies have been asked to register their VPNs with PTA by 30 November. PTA has been pushing all to register their VPNs and occasionally dropped hints at banning unregistered VPNs without clarifying timelines. However, the decision to block VPNs came following its successful trial run of blocking them on 10 November using much talked about firewall. Since its trial run, government authorities seem to busy with building a narrative to justify the VPN regulation. PTA recently claimed that 20 million attempts were made recently to access pornographic websites via VPN. Interior Ministry also sought ban on VPNs citing their use by terrorist organisations.