Digital technologies as a means of repression and social control
become a global trend also present in Western countries, including in the EU’s pursuit of strengthening its ‘digital sovereignty’ 102. Box 3: Cyber sovereignty in China and Russia China China has long pursued a cyber sovereignty agenda aimed at increasing control over ‘national’ internet with restrictive internet policies, including in particular the infamous ‘Great Firewall’. Among other limitations, those policies prevent citizens from accessing certain foreign information sources (as a result of blocking selected websites and services that the government has put on its blacklist) and force overseas tech companies to adapt to China’s domestic regulations. The 2017 Cyber-security Law expanded the cyber sovereignty trend by, among other things, requiring that critical information infrastructure operators store personal and important data domestically and make it accessible on demand to the authorities, introducing ‘security assessments’ necessary for the transfer of any such data abroad, or imposing the user real-name registration obligation by network operators. In the wider context of crackdown on internet freedom in China, these provisions are believed to further undermine human rights in digital space in the country 103. Russia In 2019, Russia introduced a package of laws concerning the ‘autonomous Russian internet’. The laws foresee that ‘internet traffic within Russia could only go through Internet exchange points (IXPs) that are pre-approved by the institution issuing control and supervision of the internet, Roskomnadzor’ 104. In practice, ‘this creates a system that gives the authorities the capacity to block access to parts of the Internet in Russia, potentially ranging from cutting access to particular internet service providers through to cutting all access to the Internet throughout Russia’ 105. Such a scenario does not seem unrealistic in light of recently documented internet outages 106 and escalating pressure on online platforms to remove content deemed illegal by the authorities 107, amid protests against the detention of prominent opposition activist Alexei Navalny, and in light of other rapidly growing concerning internet policies in Russia (see Table 2).
2.4
Next generation repression toolkit
There are also a number of fairly recent trends encompassing the ‘next generation’ of techniques used by governments to interrupt citizens’ access to online information and target their privacy, which are likely to further expand in the future. Over time, repressive regimes have developed an arsenal that extends from technical measures, laws and policies to more covert and offensive techniques including targeted malware
European Commission, 'Regulation on data governance - Questions and Answers', 2020.; Burrows, M. and Mueller-Kaler J., 'Smart Partnerships amid Great Power Competition: AI, China, and the Global Quest for Digital Sovereignty', Atlantic Council, 202. 102 Access Now, ‘A closer look at China’s Cybersecurity Law - cybersecurity, or something else?’,13 December 2017. 102 Claessen, E., op. cit.; Human Rights Watch, '‘Joint Statement on Russia’s ‘Sovereign Internet Bill’ by 10 human rights, media and Internet freedom organisations', 24 April 2019.; Netblocks, ‘Internet disrupted in Russia amid opposition protests’, 23 January 2021. 103 Access Now, ‘A closer look at China’s Cybersecurity Law - cybersecurity, or something else?’, 13 December 2017.; Claessen, E. (2020), op.cit.; Human Rights Watch, ‘Joint Statement on Russia’s ‘Sovereign Internet Bill’ by 10 human rights, media and Internet freedom organisations, 2019, op.cit. 104 Claessen, E. (2020), op.cit.; 105 ‘Joint Statement on Russia’s ‘Sovereign Internet Bill’ by 10 human rights, media and Internet freedom organisations, 24 April 2019, www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/24/joint-statement-russias-sovereign-internet-bill. 106 Netblocks (2021), ‘Internet disrupted in Russia amid opposition protests’, 23 January. 107 One of the new laws adopted in January 2021 was already used to impose fines on a number of online platforms which were considered not to have complied with an obligation to remove illegal content related to ‘incitement to participate in the unlawful protests’. See, Roskomnadzor (2021), ‘Социальные сети будут привлечены к ответственности за вовлечение подростков в противоправную деятельность’, 27 January. Human Rights Watch (2021), ‘Russia: Social Media Pressured to Censor Posts’ (…), op. cit. 102
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