A/HRC/29/32 I. Introduction 1. Contemporary digital technologies offer Governments, corporations, criminals and pranksters unprecedented capacity to interfere with the rights to freedom of opinion and expression. Online censorship, mass and targeted surveillance and data collection, digital attacks on civil society and repression resulting from online expression force individuals around the world to seek security to hold opinions without interference and seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds. Many seek to protect their security through encryption, the scrambling of data so only intended recipients may access it, which may be applied to data in transit (e.g., e-mail, messaging, Internet telephony) and at rest (e.g., hard drives, cloud services). Others seek additional protection in anonymity, using sophisticated technologies to disguise their identity and digital footprint. Encryption and anonymity, today’s leading vehicles for online security, provide individuals with a means to protect their privacy, empowering them to browse, read, develop and share opinions and information without interference and enabling journalists, civil society organizations, members of ethnic or religious groups, those persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, activists, scholars, artists and others to exercise the rights to freedom of opinion and expression. 2. Yet, just as the telephone may be used both to report a crime to the police and to conspire to commit one, so too may the Internet be abused to interfere with the rights of others, national security or public order. Law enforcement and intelligence services often assert that anonymous or encrypted communications make it difficult to investigate financial crimes, illicit drugs, child pornography and terrorism. Individuals express legitimate concerns about how bullies and criminals use new technologies to facilitate harassment. Some States restrict or prohibit encryption and anonymity on these and other grounds, while others are proposing or implementing means for law enforcement to circumvent these protections and access individual communications. 3. In the light of these challenges, the present report examines two linked questions. First, do the rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression protect secure online communication, specifically by encryption or anonymity? And, second, assuming an affirmative answer, to what extent may Governments, in accordance with human rights law, impose restrictions on encryption and anonymity? The present report seeks to answer these questions, review examples of State practice and propose recommendations. It does not purport to address every technical or legal question raised by digital technologies, but it identifies important ones for future reporting. 4. In preparing the report, the Special Rapporteur circulated a questionnaire to States, seeking relevant information on their domestic laws, regulations, policies and practices. As of 1 April 2015, 16 States had responded to this request. 1 The Special Rapporteur also issued a call for submissions from non-governmental stakeholders and convened a meeting of experts in Geneva in March 2015. The responses from Governments and the over 30 submissions by civil society organizations and individuals, which are available from the mandate holder’s web page, contributed significantly to the preparation of the report. 5. A full review of the Special Rapporteur’s activities since the beginning of his term in August 2014 may be found on the mandate holder’s web page. This report, the current 1 Responses were received from Austria, Bulgaria, Cuba, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Qatar, Republic of Moldova, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America. 3