This is a complete misread of telecoms terminology, they are not banning user encryption.
The actual regulation only mentions encryption ONCE, and that is in regard to signalling information.
Signalling information is not the data. I repeat, signaling information is NOT the data.
For phone calls, signalling is the bits that tell the system where the call is go to, and who from, and other "meta" information about the call. For data, signalling is the outer part of the IP packet that carries destination information.
The encrypted part of data is in the PAYLOAD. And they don't require the payload to be decrypted. It's also the same section that requires the
info to not be compressed. Are they really going to decompress all files before sending them off? No way.
All they are requiring is that the phone call source/destination info, and Ip traffic packets are not encrypted *further* by the ISP. Customer
VPN data will continue to flow as normal.
IAANE (I am a network engineer) and I have had to deploy a government spying^Hlegal intercept platform before, and this is pretty much just
bog standard like many other countries do.
Bottom line: A non story. Pakistan wants ISPs to implement legal intercept. Big whoop, most countries have already done this.