EUI-Freedom House report on anti-censorship tools and end-to-end encryption

Governments around the world are increasingly exerting control over the technology that people depend on to access the free and open internet, according to a new report co-authored by the European University Institute and Freedom House.

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.

Key report findings 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 criminalized 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 organizations have aligned with policymakers to pass laws that protect end-to-end encryption. These efforts offer models for future action.