ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has approved a project to provide senior officials with encrypted phones for government business, a senior technology official told lawmakers on Thursday, as cybercrime investigators reported the theft and sale of sensitive data involving public officials.
IT and Telecommunication Secretary Zarrar Hasham Khan said a government development committee had approved the phone project. He did not disclose how many devices would be supplied, when they would be distributed or the total cost of the initiative.
The proposal responds to growing concerns over the security of official communications and personal information. During a Senate committee hearing on Thursday, Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency said records linked to senior officials and other government personnel had been targeted, including information that could expose their movements and contacts. The agency did not say when the alleged theft took place.
Khan told the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication that the devices would be secure phones developed specifically for official communications.
He also said government offices had started using Beep, a locally developed messaging and calling application, for official work.
Khan said officials had begun using the platform instead of services such as WhatsApp or Zoom for government business.
Beep was first introduced in 2023 as a communication tool for public-sector employees, with its data hosted inside Pakistan. Khan’s comments did not clarify how widely the app is currently being used or whether officials have been formally restricted from using other communication platforms.
The secretary pointed to mobile-device tracking in Iran as a reason for improving the security of government communications, but he did not identify a specific incident. He also said work was underway on a broader application that would combine messaging, payments and other services, though he gave no expected completion date.
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication did not respond to a request for details on the phone project’s cost, technical specifications or timeline. The Federal Investigation Agency, a separate federal law-enforcement body, also did not respond to a request for comment.
During a separate briefing at the same hearing, Ehsanullah Chohan, an additional director at the cybercrime agency’s Islamabad office, said sensitive records connected to government officials had been targeted.
Chohan told lawmakers that high-profile data belonging to government dignitaries, senior officials, bureaucrats and personnel from other agencies had been compromised.
He said the stolen information included call-detail records, travel histories, data connected to Pakistan’s national identity database, family information, mobile subscriber details and location records. The agency said a raid in Rawalpindi had uncovered a five-person network accused of obtaining and selling sensitive data.
Chohan did not say how many officials were affected, where the records originated or whether the alleged theft involved the communication systems the new encrypted phones are intended to replace. The agency’s claims could not be independently verified.
Pakistan has yet to pass a comprehensive personal data protection law, despite years of work on draft legislation. Lawmakers at Thursday’s meeting urged that the pending bill be moved forward.