Pakistan’s homegrown WhatsApp alternative ‘Beep’ ready for launch amid internet blackouts
Internet growth stalls in India as smartphones get costlier
In order to counter the frequent internet blackouts in the country, Pakistan has reportedly developed and tested a messaging app called 'Beep', designed for secure communication among officials. The new platform is being dubbed as an alternative to WhatsApp and would help federal officers stay connected even when the internet is down.
Beep has been exclusively developed in Pakistan and has been undergoing 'successful' trial runs since 2023 when the then-IT minister, Syed Aminul Haque first revealed plans for the app.According to reports, the Pakistanigovernment is now planning to roll out the application for all its employees within the next 45 days.
Shaza Fatima Khwaja, the state minister for information technology and telecommunication, said 'Beep' would help ensure “data privacy and protection” in government communications.
“We have developed an application focused on secure and unified communication among government officials. The purpose of Beep Pakistan is to protect our privacy and data,” Khwaja was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera.
The minister added that the government hopes to roll out the app for citizens at a later stage.
"The design of the application is robust enough to offer it to the general citizens of Pakistan at later stages if desired," said Khwaja.
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Internet blackouts in Pakistan
Pakistan is notorious for routing internet blackouts which the government justifies as a security measure. In the lead-up to the general elections, earlier this year, internet services were heavily curtailed in different parts of the country.
Former prime minister Imran Khan claimed the internet disruptions were a way for the ruling class to cull dissent while facilitating vote rigging.
Users across the country have lodged complaints with thePakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the country’s top telecom regulator, about routine internet throttling. Netizens complain that social media platforms such as X, Facebook and Instagram become nightmare to open while multimedia content on WhatsApp becomes barely accessible during the blackouts.
Notably, Pakistani authorities have been on the fence about WhatsApp and the security the Meta-owned platform provides afternearly two dozen federal officials were targeted by Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO, in 2019.
The government had instructed officials at the time to avoid using WhatsApp to send confidential material that could cause harm to the country if it got in the wrong hands.
(With inputs from agencies)