Tarana asks BTRC to ink deal with Facebook

State minister for posts and telecommunications Tarana Halim on Tuesday asked the telecom regulator to speed up the process to strike an agreement with Facebook in a bid to tackle national security issues and prevent violence against women.
‘There are abusive uses of Facebook in various matters including political propaganda and violence against women. To ensure our cyber security we need to sign an agreement with the online social networking service,’ she said after her first visit to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission office in the capital Dhaka on the day.
Tarana said the previous Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government had got a chance to sign a deal as Facebook itself took initiative at that time.
‘I don’t know why they didn’t do it. But we are not going to sit idle. The BTRC should speed up the process,’ she said.
Tarana said she intentionally avoided visiting the BTRC office until on Tuesday. ‘But now I am here because the telecom regulator has got a new chairman whose views, values and ideology match with mine,’ she said.
Newly-appointed BTRC chief Shahjahan Mahmood requested the junior minister to work independently.
In a recent development, the telecom regulator has advised the government to sign a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the United States of America which will enable Bangladesh to get answers to queries from the companies like Facebook and Viber.
The BTRC also said that when contacted the companies like Facebook and Viber suggested that the Bangladesh government should contact with those firms through law-enforcement agencies.

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