Islamabad: The federal government has been planning on launching an indigenous application for the purpose of facilitating all official communications — this decision has been made in order to prevent data breach concerns within the state apparatus, a news source reported. As per the publication, the new application will be called ‘Govt-APP’, and is expected to replace over-the-top (OTT) services like WhatsApp, Viber, and Facebook Messenger that are currently being used for internal communications.
Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan chaired a cabinet meeting in this regard, which discussed the likely development of Govt-APP. The members of the meeting accepted that if they were required to do so, all the government departments would begin communicating through the new app, instead of the currently used OTT services. They also revealed that the new app would have the added benefit of ensuring that all its data would be stored within Pakistan, keeping it secure from any foreign influence.
In addition, the meeting also discussed the launch of a national professional networking portal, as part of the government’s public interest initiatives. This portal has been specifically designed for the Pakistani market, and the government further plans to give it possible back-end capabilities with some of the leading professional networking websites in the country. However, the original aim is to ensure the portal has the features of a national service and the ability to group similar people together – helping professionals connect with one another within their respective domains.
