Saudi Arabia continues call blocking on apps not complying with regulatory, security measures: Minister

Abdullah Alswaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology

Saudi Arabia will continue to block calls on the applications that do not comply with regulatory and security measures in the Kingdom, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Alswaha said. 

The nation’s security and sovereignty are “red line” and no one is allowed to cross, stressed the Minister in a televised interview.  

With regard to maintaining the confidentiality of customers’ data, Alswaha explained that this is a global challenge, given the fact that users share their data with social media platforms that sometimes governments may know nothing about.  

He pointed out that the role of the government is to raise awareness as well as set laws and regulations, noting that some companies that sell customers’ data were detected and prosecuted.  

The current situation is quite different, as the cloud computing is measured by megawatts (MW), where the baseline was less than 20 MW, now it is 90 MW, and we aim to double this figure three times by 2025, the minister also said.