The federal government has continued the development of Pakistan’s own communication app for mobile phones that would be used by Prime Minister, members of the cabinet and those working on sensitive positions.
While making progress on the development of the new app, 60 percent work on the app has been completed by the Ministry of Information and Technology and a progress report will be presented to the Prime Minister after its completion.
Sources said that the new communication app will be similar to WhatsApp however, the interface would not be the same keeping in view the security and cyber-attacks.
Pakistan’s government decided to launch its own messaging app primarily due to security and privacy reasons, after the users and masses in Pakistan showed their concerns for the security of their data after the new WhatsApp update.
It was announced in January, 2021 that Pakistan was planning to launch its own WhatsApp like messaging app, Smart Office by June 2021. The app will include all modern communication features including all modern communication features besides announcing to accelerate work on finalizing Personal Data Protection Bill.
Earlier, after the investigation of 17 media organizations it was revealed that Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Indian Congress leader Rahul Gandhi are the potential targets of the spyware made by Israel. This spyware is a malware that can extract data and information from the mobile phone and gives access to photos, emails and record calls and secretly activate mobile phones.
The leaked data had numbers once known to have been used by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Kashmiri leaders, Pakistani diplomats, Chinese journalists, Sikh activists and businesspeople known to be the subject of police investigations.
The firm, NSO, who developed this malware denied the investigation and said that the software is only developed to be used by law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies.
