14 DAY TRIAL // Mobile phone users in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not be pleased to hear that the government plans to ban messaging services such as WhatsApp, Viber and Skype.
Saudi Arabia is already known for draconic rules and censorship upon communication services such as Twitter, so it does not come as a surprise that new services are now targeted by the government.
According to ArabNews, The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) plans to ban Viber, WhatsApp and Skype because they use encrypted connections, which cannot be monitored by the government.
For the last 20 days, there have been intense discussions between heads of various telecom companies and CITC. Unfortunately, the conclusion wasn’t positive for the millions of mobile phone users in Saudi Arabia.
The cited source claims that CITC is now demanding that WhatsApp, Viber and Skype install monitoring services, so that the commission can track and decrypt any conversation going through these channels. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter.