September 9, 2025
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
Pakistan’s population of 241 million is living under a surveillance net that Amnesty International in its report has described as “a dystopian reality operating in the shadows.”
But the real issue, according to the report, is that this dragnet is being built and maintained not only by Pakistani authorities, but by a network of companies and governments abroad that are knowingly fueling repression. Amnesty’s year-long investigation, Shadows of Control, exposes how advanced spyware, interception platforms, and censorship systems have quietly flowed into Pakistan from Germany, France, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China, Canada, and the United States.
The report makes clear that Pakistan’s unlawful mass surveillance and censorship regime is not homegrown — it is imported, outsourced, and enabled by foreign profiteers.
“This is nothing short of a vast and profitable economy of oppression,” says Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard. “Pakistani people are paying the highest price, while companies and states outside the country pocket the profits and turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses they enable.”
How Pakistan Built Its Digital Panopticon
At the heart of this surveillance web are two powerful tools: the Web Monitoring System (WMS 2.0), a national firewall capable of blocking internet access, VPNs, and specific websites, and the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS), a mass surveillance platform that lets authorities snoop on phone calls, text messages, internet activity, and even geolocation data.
The firewall was originally based on Canadian firm Sandvine’s technology. When Sandvine divested in 2023, Pakistan seamlessly upgraded to China’s Geedge Networks, supported by Niagara Networks (U.S.) and Thales (France). Amnesty believes WMS 2.0 is effectively a repackaged version of China’s “Great Firewall,” a censorship tool perfected in Beijing and now exported abroad.
The LIMS system is no less insidious. It was supplied by Germany’s Utimaco, funneled through UAE-based Datafusion Systems. Installed across telecom networks under orders from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), it gives state agencies — including the feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) — direct access to citizens’ most private communications.
The Human Cost of Surveillance
The systems may sound technical, but their impact on ordinary Pakistanis is brutally simple: no conversation is safe, no message is private, and no digital space is beyond the state’s reach.
A journalist interviewed by Amnesty described how publishing a corruption story landed him in the crosshairs.
“Everything is monitored, be it email or calls,” he said. “After the story, anyone I would speak to, even on WhatsApp, would come under scrutiny. Authorities would go to people and ask them, ‘why did he call you?’ Now I go months without speaking to my family for fear they will be targeted.”
This climate of fear has fueled widespread self-censorship among journalists, activists, and citizens, who are forced to weigh the risks of every word typed or spoken.
A Global Web of Complicity
Amnesty’s investigation dismantles the myth that Pakistan’s surveillance state is a purely domestic issue. In reality, it is propped up by an international supply chain — a chain in which companies and governments in democratic states are complicit.
- Canada: Sandvine (now AppLogic Networks) laid the foundation for Pakistan’s first firewall.
- China: Geedge Networks exported the upgraded WMS 2.0, modeled on China’s own digital iron curtain.
- United States: Niagara Networks provided the hardware and software that keep Pakistan’s firewall running.
- France: Thales supplied crucial components.
- Germany: Utimaco built the LIMS backbone, allowing direct interception of telecom data.
- UAE: Datafusion acted as the regional conduit, funneling surveillance tech into Pakistan.
This isn’t a matter of ignorance. These firms are seasoned players in the global surveillance industry. Yet, when pressed by Amnesty, most refused to answer questions. Only two — Niagara Networks (U.S.) and AppLogic Networks (Canada) — provided written responses. The others either stonewalled or went silent.
Equally troubling, Western governments — including Canada and Germany — admitted receiving Amnesty’s inquiries but offered no substantive answers. Pakistan’s government ignored the questions altogether.
The message is clear: profits and political expediency outweigh human rights.
Surveillance Without Safeguards
Pakistan’s legal framework offers little defense against this onslaught. The Fair Trial Act technically requires warrants for interception, but Amnesty’s report shows that authorities routinely ignore such requirements. Oversight mechanisms are either absent or toothless.
In practice, the state has been given a blank check to deploy surveillance at will — aided by corporations abroad that know full well the consequences of their technology.
“LIMS and WMS 2.0 are funded by public money, enabled by foreign tech, and used to silence dissent,” says Jurre van Bergen, Amnesty’s technologist. “They allow the government to spy on millions simultaneously, with no transparency, no safeguards, and no accountability.”
Digital Authoritarianism for Export
The export of China’s “Great Firewall” through Geedge Networks is particularly alarming. Amnesty believes Pakistan’s WMS 2.0 is not just influenced by Beijing’s censorship system, but is a commercialized version of it, now available on the international market.
This represents a dangerous new trend: the globalization of digital authoritarianism, where the tools of control pioneered in one authoritarian state are sold as off-the-shelf solutions to others.
The Deafening Silence of Accountability
The most damning aspect of Amnesty’s investigation may not be the revelations themselves, but the complete absence of accountability.
Out of 20 companies contacted, the overwhelming majority refused to engage. Out of nine government entities approached, only two even acknowledged receipt of Amnesty’s letters — and then offered no answers. Pakistan’s authorities, predictably, ignored them.
This wall of silence underscores the larger problem: there is no effective regulation of the global surveillance industry. Companies can sell tools of repression to governments with dismal human rights records, while their home countries turn a blind eye.
An Urgent Call for Action
Amnesty is demanding immediate action from both supplier countries and corporations. Among its recommendations:
- Export bans on surveillance technologies destined for abusive regimes.
- Corporate liability for companies whose tools are used to commit human rights abuses.
- Transparency mandates, forcing governments and firms to disclose contracts and exports.
- Stronger legal safeguards in Pakistan to protect privacy, free expression, and peaceful assembly.
Until such steps are taken, Pakistan’s citizens will remain trapped in an invisible cage — their lives monitored, filtered, and controlled by a surveillance state built on foreign complicity.
The Cost of Silence
The Shadows of Control report makes one thing clear: what is happening in Pakistan is not an isolated case. It is part of a broader pattern where governments hungry for control and companies hungry for profit converge to undermine fundamental freedoms.
In this global equation, Pakistanis are collateral damage — stripped of privacy, silenced by fear, and surveilled by machines they never chose, powered by corporations they never knew existed.
Callamard warns, “There are human rights limitations to the search for profit in markets, but these have all been ignored. Pakistan’s people are living under an unlawful surveillance state — and it is being built with foreign hands.”