Future Threats Monitor - 10 April 2012

On 13 March Reporters Without Borders released its 2012 Enemies of the Internet report, outlining what it considers to be the most egregious instances of, and countries responsible for, online censorship. Their scope extends to arrests or harassment of what it terms ‘netizens’ (internet citizens), online surveillance, website blocking and the adoption of repressive internet laws. The latest report updates the 2011 issue, and new information not only indicates some interesting trends, but also suggests there is discord ahead. The most significant point is that these tensions will not all be in oppressive states, but moderate western countries.

This year Bahrain and Belarus joined the list of states the organisation considers to be enemies of the internet (see pointer). But while some countries were added and none removed, it was suggested that by next year at least one country could come off the list. The authors of the report state that Burma could be removed if planned reforms come in, and the recent elections suggest that for now, at least, progress is on track. However, Burma may be replaced by Thailand which has been coming down hard on what it perceives as lèse-majesté by imprisoning bloggers and filtering internet content.

The timing of the report’s release was apt, as it coincided with reports that Iran is the chief suspect in a series of cyber attacks on the UK’s BBC and other networks, seemingly intended to prevent the broadcast of information critical to the regime that could be accessible within its borders.

There is friction on the horizon in Europe. There are factions within the European Commission (EC) who favour a ‘right to digital oblivion’, under which people would have the right to have data relating to them and their online activity wiped. Were this to be enshrined in law it would place a heavy burden on internet service providers, but most importantly it would fly in the face of moves in some countries, most recently the UK, to cache data on all online activity so that it can be made available to the security services for counter-terrorism purposes. This suggested policy will be hotly debated in the UK, as will any moves to codify a ‘right to digital oblivion’ in the EC, but two are fundamentally incompatible. Should these policies both gain enough support it would signal a new split between the UK and the EC.

Pointer:

• Enemies of the internet (Alphabetically, not ranked)
  • Bahrain
  • Belarus
  • Burma
  • China
  • Cuba
  • Iran
  • North Korea
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Syria
  • Turkmenistan
  • Uzbekistan
  • Vietnam