The use of encryption and anonymity to exercise the rights to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age 2015, para. 36

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Paragraph text: The trend lines regarding security and privacy online are deeply worrying. States often fail to provide public justification to support restrictions. Encrypted and anonymous communications may frustrate law enforcement and counter-terrorism officials, and they complicate surveillance, but State authorities have not generally identified situations - even in general terms, given the potential need for confidentiality - where a restriction has been necessary to achieve a legitimate goal. States downplay the value of traditional non-digital tools in law enforcement and counter-terrorism efforts, including transnational cooperation. As a consequence, the public lacks an opportunity to measure whether restrictions on their online security would be justified by any real gains in national security and crime prevention. Efforts to restrict encryption and anonymity also tend to be quick reactions to terrorism, even when the attackers themselves are not alleged to have used encryption or anonymity to plan or carry out an attack. Moreover, even where the restriction is arguably in pursuit of a legitimate interest, many laws and policies regularly do not meet the standards of necessity and proportionality and have broad, deleterious effects on the ability of all individuals to exercise freely their rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression.

Body: Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

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Reference: SR Freedom of Opinion, Report to the HRC (2015), A/HRC/29/32, para. 36.