The report, ‘Tunnel vision: anti-censorship tools, end-to-end encryption, and the fight for a free and open Internet’, finds that in at least 21 of the 72 countries surveyed in Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net, anti-censorship tools, like virtual private networks (VPNs), have been blocked in the last five years. End-to-end encrypted platforms have been blocked in at least 17 countries in that timeframe. These blocks occurred in countries exclusively ranked Not Free or Partly Free by FOTN, underscoring how this tactic supports efforts by governments to control the internet and acts as a force multiplier for other forms of digital repression.
"Anti-censorship and encrypted tools are lifelines for resistance and resilience to digital repression. Their role in facilitating people’s ability to express themselves, access information, and protect their data is exactly what puts them in the crosshairs of repressive leaders.” said Allie Funk, Research Director for Technology and Democracy at Freedom House. “Our report shows how efforts to restrict access to these essential tools have grown more sophisticated and prevalent.”
"Safeguarding access to anti-censorship and end-to-end encrypted tools and strengthening digital resilience are fundamental to protecting the free and open internet, strengthening national security, and advancing economic growth and innovation," said Patryk Pawlak, Director of the Global Initiative on the Future of the Internet at the European University Institute. "The public and private sectors can take further action to guard against government crackdowns on these incredibly valuable tools. At the EUI, we are proud to support these efforts through research."
Key report takeaways include:
- Anti-censorship and end-to-end encryption technology power the free and open internet. Anti-censorship tools, like VPNs, encrypt and obfuscate internet traffic, enabling their users to access restricted political, social, and religious content. End-to-end encryption protocols offer the highest degree of security for online communications. These technologies empower people to express themselves safely and securely online, strengthen national security and fuel the digital economy.
- Restricting access to anti-censorship tools is a core, authoritarian tactic of information control. Over the past five years, anti-censorship technologies were blocked in at least 21 of the 72 countries covered by the 2024 edition of FOTN report, all of which were ranked Not Free or Partly Free. Governments have also criminalised people’s use of anti-censorship technology, placed onerous legal restrictions on VPNs’ ability to operate in markets, and forced app store providers to remove the tools from their marketplaces.
- Governments’ efforts to restrict end-to-end encryption technology are both blunt and subtle. In at least 17 of the 72 countries covered by FOTN 2024, end-to-end encrypted services were blocked in the past five years. These blunt restrictions occurred in countries ranked Not Free or Partly Free, as part of states’ efforts to increase access to personal data or prevent people from securely communicating. A broader set of governments, including in democracies, have obliged providers to decrypt communications, requested exceptional access to encrypted communications or sought to impose measures that do not overtly limit end-to-end encryption but would be impossible to implement without fundamentally breaking the cryptographic standards that enable it.
- Investment and innovation are needed to strengthen digital resilience and defend the free and open internet. Civil society, the private sector and several democracies have taken creative action to support access to anti-censorship and end-to-end encryption services. The private sector has increasingly integrated anti-censorship technology into widely used web protocols, while civil society organisations have aligned with policymakers to pass laws that protect end-to-end encryption. These efforts offer models for future action.
Report recommendations include:
For governments:
- Protect access to anti-censorship and end-to-end encrypted tools. Governments should refrain from blocking, criminalising, or imposing restrictions on access to anti-censorship and end-to-end encrypted tools and respect the international human rights principles of necessity, proportionality, and legality when considering any such decisions. Legal and regulatory frameworks should affirm that providing strong end-to-encrypted services is lawful, protected, and essential for safeguarding human rights, cybersecurity, national security, and financial systems.
- Invest in proven and rights-based responses to crimes. Governments have a responsibility to protect their populations from terrorism, violence, child sexual abuse, and other heinous crimes that use the internet in their facilitation. Policymakers should invest in mechanisms that mitigate these challenges in a way that aligns with international human rights standards of necessity, proportionality, and legitimacy, rather than pursuing responses that break end-to-end encryption or undermine access to anti-censorship tools. In doing so, they should work closely with civil society, technical experts, the private sector and survivors of exploitation and violence, all of whom have insights that will help make responses more effective and innovative.
- Fund programming to defend and extend access to anti-censorship and end-to-end encryption tools. Foreign assistance programming is vital for the development and distribution of cutting-edge anti-censorship and end-to-end encrypted tools. Governments should incorporate this programming into their foreign assistance strategies, prioritising support for tools that are privacy-preserving, incorporate best-in-class security standards, and are open-source.
- Engage internationally to protect access to anti-censorship and end-to-end encryption. Governments should include the protection of these technologies in their cyber and digital diplomacy strategies. This includes championing anti-censorship and end-to-end encrypted tools within existing global processes like the United Nations’ Global Digital Compact, the Declaration on the Future of the Internet, and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20 Review Process), and in bilateral engagements and other multilateral fora like the Freedom Online Coalition.
For private companies:
- Adopt best practices for privacy, data security, usability, and accessibility. Providers of anticensorship tools and end-to-end encrypted messaging services should protect the privacy of their users by design. Providers should create privacy-preserving products that are end-to-end encrypted by default, support anonymity software and collect minimal data. Companies providing services across the internet infrastructure ecosystem should embed anti-censorship functions into their products, which will help cultivate resilience to censorship and surveillance as a default.
- Uphold human rights commitments when facing government demands. Providers of anti-censorship and end-to-end encrypted platforms should resist government requests for user data or content restrictions that contravene international human rights standards.
- Support civil society resilience to defend anti-censorship tools and end-to-end encryption. Companies should collaborate with civil society on joint and sustained efforts to defend access to anti-censorship and end-to-end encrypted tools, and the free and open internet more broadly.
The Global Initiative on the Future of the Internet (GIFI) is a multi-stakeholder initiative hosted at the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, promoting an open internet and supports the principles of the Declaration for the Future of the Internet (DFI).
Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organisation working to create a world where all are free. It informs the public about threats to freedom, mobilises global action, and supports democracy’s defenders.