No more privacy

BlackBerry has found a face-saving exit route from a market where it has only a few customers left

Privacy is a thing of the past. With the Pakistan government demanding open access to monitor a significant swathe of BlackBerry customers within its borders, the phone-maker has decided to exit the country. One would have expected BlackBerry to firmly hold on to the Pakistani market in the light of its plummeting stocks and dwindling market share the world over. Also, BB appears to have complied with similar requests made by some other countries, including India and Saudi Arabia, so the difference in treatment being meted out to Pakistan seems surprising. Or maybe not.

By citing that Pakistan’s request amounts to forfeiting its commitment to protect users’ privacy, BlackBerry has seemingly found the perfect face-saving exit route from a market where it barely has a few thousand customers left, in the wake of the rapid emergence of Android devices with more apps and options. But regardless of whether BlackBerry’s decision to quit Pakistan is founded on genuinely ethical grounds or on a dipping profit and loss account, the fact remains that the desperate measures being resorted to by Pakistan’s leadership are rapidly accelerating the nation’s backward move to the Stone Age. Pakistan’s terrorism issues are exacerbated with the use of digital communications by miscreants so one can somewhat understand the country’s paranoia. A law-enforcement agency has the right to enlist the support of technology companies to investigate specific criminal activities, but it is far-fetched to demand unfettered access to all customers. At a larger level, the move by BlackBerry could sound the death knell for any plans that international companies may have of setting up shop in Pakistan, given that data protection is important for these organisations. 

Tailpieces

1) Reham Khan’s former husband Dr Ejazur Rehman has sent her a Rs100 million legal notice, demanding a written apology for allegedly damaging his reputation. Two enraged ex-husbands is surely something she hadn’t bargained for!

2) Adult film star James Deen has been accused of sexual assault by a third victim. If he is guilty, one wonders why, given all the action he gets on screen.

3) Around 150 world leaders, 40,000 delegates and the usual luvvies, are flocking to Paris, mostly in private jets, to blabber about climate change (to be read as, finding the best way to tax us more while we foot the bill for their private jet travel and designer dinners). Would have been nicer if half these minds had converged instead to deliberate over another global issue — the Islamic State.

4) Prince Charles says climate change is partly to blame for Syria’s descent into conflict. And he has himself to blame for his foot-in-the-mouth disease.

5) I read about a man in Multan who gifted himself an in-house orgy as he married two of his cousins on the same day. What’s worse is that he is being hailed as a hero, having saved his cousins the ‘ignominy’ of not finding a suitable match. The news is nauseating and macabre at many levels. Cousin marriages are unsuitable for biological reasons. Also, I don’t suppose there is any love involved, as the women are being used solely to reproduce and grow the family. Imagine the humiliation of a woman who is told that she is being married out of pity because no one else will have her. The fact that the cousins said that they have no problem with the arrangement is evidence of the severe brain-washing that they may have been through for them to commit to a lifetime of misery, oppression and male chauvinism.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd,  2015.

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