Saudi Arabian Government Announces Lifting Bans On VOIPs

Saudi Arabian Government Announces Lifting Bans On VOIPs

The Saudi Arabian government recently announced that it intends to end bans on popular apps which allows the user to make VOIP calls via the internet. This ban has been in place since 2013 and affected not only Saudi Arabia but also several other neighboring Gulf States. The bans were put in place after the Arab Spring protests were people protested autocratic regimes in the country. Protests were organized online.

The History of the VOIP Ban in Saudi Arabia

The people of Saudi Arabia hardly protested, despite them having one of the most restricting regimes. Despite this, the Saudi Arabian government decides to put the ban in place as a precaution. Several popular communication apps were banned including Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Viber.

Many Saudi Arabian citizens have also speculated that perhaps the ban was put in place to protect the monopoly of the state-owned telecom services. A large portion of the company’s income would have been at risk if it were possible to have VOIP calls.

Up until now, Saudi Arabian expats have been bypassing bans using a VPN like TorGuard.

The Impact of The Announcement

Lifting the ban came largely as an unexpected yet welcome surprise to the people of Saudi Arabia. The country has been hit hard by recent low oil prices which severely impacted the Saudi Arabian economy. Lifting the ban will presumably form part of a broad range of economic reforms in an attempt to diversify the country, and to make it more approachable for international investors.

Since the announcement, however, all blocked services such as Facebook and Viber, still remained block, confirming that the ban was not immediately lifted.

There has also been some confusion about lifting the bans, especially since Adel Aby Hameed, spokesman for Saudi Arabian telecoms regulator, the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) made some bizarre comments on national television.

While appearing on Arabiya TV, Hameed stated that the bans were being lifted in order to protect users’ personal information and to make sure that all illegal content remains blocked.

When an interviewer asked Hameed if his company would be monitoring the apps, he replied that no user could under any circumstance escape surveillance and monitoring by the CITC, whether the communication is local or global. Hameed’s appearance on television made it clear that even though the bans might be lifted, Saudi Arabian users will still be subject to monitoring and censoring especially in the case of so-called illegal content.

For many, the surveillance seemed like a step backward. Despite the reservations about surveillance, plenty of questions have arisen, especially over how the government intends to monitor encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp.

WhatsApp’s famous end-to-end encryption on all communications means that no one but the sender and receiver of the message is able to intercept its content. Many governments throughout the world have been looking for a way to intercept WhatsApp messages. China has recently blocked WhatsApp, and even the UK asked for cooperation from WhatsApp after terrorist attacks in London have been linked to the messaging service.

So far, no government has been able to sway the Facebook-owned company, and it seems unlikely that Saudi Arabia has found a method to bypass the encryption.

For many, the latest announcement is shrouded in confusion. None of the previously banned apps are actually working yet, and the government seems serious about monitoring citizens, yet apparently, has no plan on how to do so.

Recommended VPNs for Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabian Government Announces Lifting Bans On VOIPs Saudi Arabian Government Announces Lifting Bans On VOIPs
Multi-platform Compatible
256-AES Encryption
PRICE $5 for 1 month with code "best10VPN" $6.95 a month
Website Rating 9.9 8.8
24/7 Live Chat
Residential / Dedicated IP for permanent streaming access
Has Mobile App + PC / Mac Support
Stealth VPN / Advanced Obfuscation techniques
Visit VPN Provider Visit TorGuard Visit PIA
Passion for Cyber Security and Technology.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*

Lost Password

Sign Up