WhatsApp | Pakistan

The Sindh government on Wednesday issued a statement dismissing a false security alert circulating through WhatsApp, which claimed that a high-level security alert had been imposed in Karachi from November 12-30. A day prior, 12 people were killed and 36 were injured in a suicide blast outside the district and sessions court building in Islamabad’s G-11 area, according to officials. Security was tightened in the federal capital and in other major areas like Lahore. The fake warning doing the rounds stated: “Based on verified intelligence reports received from federal and provincial law enforcement agencies, the Government of Sindh has declared a high-level security alert in the Karachi Metropolitan Area, effective from 12:01am on November 12, 2025, until 11:59pm on November 30, 2025.” The alert listed several public places such as shopping centres and schools that were declared “high-risk locations” and to be avoided by the public, including Dolmen Mall, Empress Market, Jinnah International Airport and all sc...

WhatsApp is testing message limits across countries and will warn users as they near their monthly cap

SAN FRANCISCO: A US judge has granted an injunction barring Israeli spyware maker NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users but slashed a $168 million damages award at trial to just $4m. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled on Friday that NSO Group’s behaviour fell short of a “particularly egregious” standard needed to support the jury’s calculations on a financial penalty. But in the ruling, she said the court “concluded that defendants’ conduct causes irreparable harm, and there being no dispute that the conduct is ongoing” the judge granted WhatsApp owner Meta an injunction to stop NSO Group’s snooping tactics at the messaging service. “We applaud this decision that comes after six years of litigation to hold NSO accountable for targeting civil society members,” WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart said in a statement. Evidence at trial showed that NSO Group reverse-engineered WhatsApp code to stealthily install spyware targeting users, according to the ruling. The spyware was repeatedly redesigned to escape detecti...

Tech companies, including WhatsApp and Reddit, as well as streaming giant Twitch and gaming firm Roblox, could be among more than a dozen sites added to Australia’s social media ban for under-16s, the country’s regulator said Wednesday. Platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube were already included in the ban — a world-first. But the head of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has written to 16 more companies to “self-assess” whether they fall under the ban’s remit. The list also included Pinterest as well as Lego Play, streaming company Kick and gaming platform Steam. Companies will need to make a case if they believe their platform should be exempt from the ban, the national broadcaster ABC said. Inman Grant told the network that while some cases were “pretty clear”, the regulator would “give them the due diligence process”. “We need to hear them all out,” she said. The regulator said it will initially focus on platforms with the greatest number of users, where there are hig...

PTI founder Imran Khan’s lawyers boycotted the proceedings of a Rawalpindi anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday after connectivity issues appeared to affect communication with the incarcerated former prime minister, who briefly joined the hearing via a WhatsApp call. An ATC in Rawalpindi was hearing a case against Imran pertaining to an attack on the army’s General Headquarters GHQ) on May 9, 2023, when the PTI founder’s arrest had sparked violent protests across the country, during which state buildings and military installations were torched and vandalised. During today’s hearing, Imran was included via a WhatsApp call, following the court’s dismissal of a plea for his in-person appearance last week. His lawyers, Salman Akram Raja and Faisal Malik, sought Judge Amjad Ali Shah’s permission to talk to the ex-premier. But during the call, Imran’s voice was disrupted and his face appeared blurred on screen, leading his lawyers to boycott the court proceedings. They stated that such a trial was “unfair”. The co...

Meta’s messaging platform WhatsApp is working on a new voicemail-style feature that lets users send voice messages if a call is not answered, adding a voicemail shortcut to the interface. The voicemail-style feature is currently available to select Android beta users (version 2.25.23.21), aiming to streamline communication by offering a quick follow-up option directly from […]

The Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) issued an alert this week, warning against an ongoing scam aiming to compromise WhatsApp accounts via fake calls requesting a code. WhatsApp is an especially widely used messaging service across Pakistan, with the World Population Review reporting about 52 million Pakistani users of the platform in 2024 — the seventh-largest number in the world by population. Its use has even been advocated in the legal sector for greater efficiency. However, rising digital scams threaten users’ data security and can cause accounts to be compromised. According to the alert, DRF — a not-for-profit organisation based in Pakistan that has been working on digital rights freedoms since 2013 — received “multiple reports of an ongoing scam to hack WhatsApp accounts”. “Victims receive calls from delivery riders, or from individuals pretending to be from the HEC (Higher Education Commission), and are prompted to share a code that compromises their WhatsApp,” the alert said. Infographics provided by ...

LAHORE: Justice Muhammad Amjad Rafiq of the Lahore High Court has underlined the need for modernising communication methods within the criminal justice system. In a judgment, the judge highlighted inefficiencies in the prosecution’s handling of case records and proposed the use of WhatsApp as a tool to streamline the process. The judge noted that delays in providing case records to prosecutors often waste valuable judicial time. The judge had taken notice of the situation during the hearing of a post-arrest bail petition, when he observed a female deputy prosecutor general attempting to collect the facts haphazardly to respond to the queries of the court. Asked by the court, the prosecutor said the record of the case had just been tabled before her in the court. Being irked with the response and waste of precious time of the court, the judge had summoned the prosecutor general of Punjab. Justice Rafiq criticised the practice of physically transporting documents that could easily be shared electronically. To a...

Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry on Wednesday warned the public of a terrorist group using WhatsApp channels to “disseminate hateful content and harmful narratives”, urging the platform and the global community to help Pakistan combat terrorism. In a post on X, the state minister said the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and the United States — was operating its WhatsApp channels and sending bulk messages to “proliferate its violent/hateful ideology, to spread its harmful narratives, and for glorification of its terror activities”. The state minister requested the international community and WhatsApp to “cooperate to help us fight this menace”. “These accounts must be blocked and necessary algorithms created to auto-detect and auto-suspend such handles/numbers,” he added. On Sept 1, 2010, the US designated the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation, while the UN imposed sanctions on the entity on July 29, 2011 due to it...

Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp messaging service has been banned from all United States House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to all House staff on Monday. The notice said the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.” The memo, from the chief administrative officer, recommended using other messaging apps, including Microsoft Corp’s Teams platform, Amazon.com’s Wickr, Signal, and Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime. Meta disagreed with the move “in the strongest possible terms”, a company spokesperson said, noting that the platform provides a higher level of security than the other approved apps. In January, a WhatsApp official said Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions had targeted scores of its users, including journalists and members of civil society. The House has banned other apps from staff devices in the past, including...

The world’s leading messaging App, WhatsApp, is working to launch a long-anticipated usernames feature. According to details exposed by WABetaInfo, a system on the messaging platform is in a testing phase that will let users communicate without sharing their contact numbers. At the moment, WhatsApp needs users to exchange phone numbers to start a chat, […]

WhatsApp, the world’s top messaging app, owned by Meta, is working on a status sharing feature to give users better control over status and updates. This new feature will let users choose if their contacts can forward or share their status or not. Initially, the Status sharing feature was discovered in the Android Beta version […]