Facebook Has Denied Pakistan’s Request To Link Phone Numbers to Accounts

A few days ago, Pakistani government requested Facebook to link the accounts of its users with their phone numbers, which has now been rejected by the management of the company.

Christine Chen, Facebook’s chairperson, said that the company has declined the request made by the government of Pakistan in order to protect the rights of its users, reported Voice of America.

She said:

We apply a strict legal process to any government request for data or content restrictions.

Pakistan has been in negotiation with Facebook over several matters, mainly regarding the major digital crisis regarding blasphemous content. To counter the issue, Justice Shaukat Aziz suggested to remove such material even at the expense of banning social media.

Recently, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Khan held a meeting with Facebook’s vice president of public policy to discuss the removal of blasphemous content present on the social media.

In regards to the removal of fake social media accounts in the county, such requests were submitted by the Pakistani government. Since mobile phone numbers are biometrically verified in the country, linking them with the social media can make it easier to locate the offender.

FIA has observed that most of the cyber crimes have been committed over Facebook, given its popularity and usage in the country. Therefore the government requested Facebook VP to link Facebook accounts with phone numbers so that culprits could be traced earlier and without fail.

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