The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ('PTA') published, on 7 July 2021, a Draft Licensing Framework for Terrestrial IoT Services for public consultation. In particular, the draft framework aims to provide regulatory guidelines for the industry to enable the development of an IoT ecosystem in Pakistan. To this end, the draft framework primarily addresses the procedures for licensing IoT services and for assigning radio frequencies. Notably, the draft framework also provides guidelines on data management, requiring licensees to:

• save and maintain data for at least 12 months for provision to the PTA as and when requested;
• comply with all existing or future published laws, regulations, and requirements issued by the PTA or other authorities concerning data management, including security, privacy, and protection of customers' data; and
• report the data breaches to the PTA within five working days after becoming aware of such a breach.

Comments may be provided via email to [email protected] until 6 August 2021.

You can read the press release here and the draft framework here.