UN Report calls for encryption and anonymity in the digital age

A new report from the United Nations has underlined the importance of encryption and anonymity in the digital age. Penned by a UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, the document underlines the importance of private communications and calls on member states to protect their use under law. Article by Techdirt

A new report from the United Nations has underlined the importance of encryption and anonymity in the digital age. Penned by a UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, the document underlines the importance of private communications and calls on member states to protect their use under law.

Article by Techdirt

Techdirt has been following for a while a worrying move to demonize strong encryption, amid calls from politicians and senior law enforcement officials for it to be undermined or compromised. That makes a new report affirming the central importance of encryption (doc), from the UN's Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, particularly valuable. His report clearly inhabits a post-Snowden world, since it takes as its starting point the following:

Contemporary digital technologies offer Governments, corporations, criminals and pranksters unprecedented capacity to interfere with the rights to freedom of opinion and expression.

The report looks at ways in which encryption and anonymity can help to protect basic rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression, and explores to what extent governments may impose restrictions. In many ways, the most interesting aspect of his analysis concerns the right to hold opinions:

During the negotiations on the drafting of the [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights], "the freedom to form an opinion and to develop this by way of reasoning was held to be absolute and, in contrast to freedom of expression, not allowed to be restricted by law or other power". The ability to hold an opinion freely was seen to be a fundamental element of human dignity and democratic self-governance, a guarantee so critical that the Covenant would allow no interference, limitation or restriction.

But as Kaye points out, the ability to hold opinions is now intimately bound up with technology:

Individuals regularly hold opinions digitally, saving their views and their search and browse histories, for instance, on hard drives, in the cloud, and in e-mail archives, which private and public authorities often retain for lengthy if not indefinite periods. Civil society organizations likewise prepare and store digitally memoranda, papers and publications, all of which involve the creation and holding of opinions. In other words, holding opinions in the digital age is not an abstract concept limited to what may be in one's mind. And yet, today, holding opinions in digital space is under attack.

Encryption and anonymity, he concludes, are powerful ways to preserve that right to hold opinions in a digital form:

The right to hold opinions without interference also includes the right to form opinions. Surveillance systems, both targeted and mass, may undermine the right to form an opinion, as the fear of unwilling disclosure of online activity, such as search and browsing, likely deters individuals from accessing information, particularly where such surveillance leads to repressive outcomes. For all these reasons, restrictions on encryption and anonymity must be assessed to determine whether they would amount to an impermissible interference with the right to hold opinions

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