New Delhi: The Pakistan government has launched a new homegrown app called ‘Beep Pakistan’ as an alternative to WhatsApp, currently accessible to government officials. Pakistanis, however, are sceptical of its usage. Concerns vary from what if ISI spies on their chats to the platform being a GHQ app.
A Reddit user wrote, “Beep is the sound which comes when you censor stuff. Which is naturally what this app will be used for.”
Amid disruptions and bans across all social media platforms, Pakistan announced the development of this app back in August 2023. Government officials are reportedly already using the app for internal communications. Development officially began on 27 July.
The former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government announced the app in 2021.
Shaza Fatima Khwaja, the state minister for information technology and telecommunication, announced that the application is currently in trial runs within her ministry and will be launched “soon” across other government departments, GeoTv reported.
Officials claim that the app supports audio and video calls, messaging, conference calls for up to 200 participants, and document sharing.
What is Beep Pakistan?
The Pakistan government plans to roll out the application to all government employees within the next 45 days.
Afterward, they will assess the situation and consider a public launch. Unlike WhatsApp, Beep Pakistan’s servers will be based in Pakistan.
Baber Majeed Bhatti, CEO of the National Information Technology Board (NITB), confirmed that his department has tested and deployed the app within the Ministry of IT to address any issues.
Officials also claimed that Beep Pakistan is more advanced and capable than WhatsApp and will have Zoom-like facilities.
The announcement of an alternative to WhatsApp comes amid current disruptions experienced by Pakistani users, particularly with sending and receiving media files.
Digital rights activists speculate that these issues might be related to the country’s testing and implementation of an online firewall designed to suppress free speech and control dissent.
Fareiha Aziz, the co-founder of Bolo Bhi advocacy group posted a thread on X exposing the faults within Pakistan’s firewall.
Khwaja on Friday confirmed that the Pakistan government is implementing an internet firewall but dismissed claims that it would restrict online free speech, describing it instead as a ‘cybersecurity enhancement’.
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Pakistan’s ongoing internet ban
On July 21, during a press conference, both the Pakistan government and the state-run Pakistan
Telecommunication Authority (PTA) addressed concerns about disruptions in WhatsApp service in Pakistan, attributing them to a global technological issue. They also called it a “technical glitch”.
However, Meta Platforms Inc, which owns WhatsApp, confirmed to Geo Fact Check that no global outage or slowdown was affecting WhatsApp services.
In April, the Pakistan government confirmed that X had been banned since February due to “security threats”. Additionally, mobile data services were suspended in the country on the day of elections in February.
The Pakistani government has long been concerned about security issues with WhatsApp, especially following reports from December 2019 that revealed at least two dozen senior officials had been targeted by Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO.
In response, the government issued a directive advising officials to avoid using WhatsApp for sending sensitive documents and announced plans to create a local communication app to improve security, Al Jazeera reported.