Federal Minister for IT and Telecom, Syed Amin-ul-Haque stated that IT Ministry will make Pakistan’s first social media application before 2021 ends. Everyone will have open access to the application.
It has been reported that the application will be an all-encompassing one, as it would have all the features the American messaging application WhatsApp has, such as voice calls, messages, and video calls.
The IT ministry will initiate the application’s development as soon as the federal cabinet approves its draft, which will also be presented in front of it soon.
Read more: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s “unsurvivable” trolling makes them quit social media
Pakistan’s major cities like Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi will witness the application’s launch initially. The application’s registration process would require one’s CNIC number as well as a phone number.
Any content or statements involving immoral, blasphemous, or obscene material would strictly be prohibited in the application’s rules and regulations.
This announcement has come amid the ongoing frenzy on WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy, which be put in effect in February of this year. The updated policy states, that WhatsApp will now share “some information” of its users to its parent company Facebook, to target users with advertisements. People are greatly concerned about their privacy on the application after this development.
Read more: Social media mocked Maryam Nawaz for hilariously mocking Imran Khan
WhatsApp will be able to share its users’ statuses, pictures, internet connection, and IP address, with Facebook, digital rights expert, Usman Khilji told Geo news. The application will also be able to see which group a user is a part of and who else is a member of that group. However, one-to-one conversations on WhatsApp will be encrypted, hence, neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can have access to your private chats.
“They will use this information to target you with Facebook ads,” Khilji added.
“Try that you do not put much on WhatsApp status and if you want to protect your identity do not put your picture on WhatsApp,” the digital rights expert advised.
He also warned people who use WhatsApp for running businesses, stating “that information can also be shown to a third party apart from the business and the user.”
Read more: Are we really our true selves on social media?