1. The present report analyses the implications of States’ surveillance of communications for the exercise of the human rights to privacy and to freedom of opinion and expression. While considering the impact of significant technological advances in communications, the report underlines the urgent need to further study new modalities of surveillance and to revise national laws regulating these practices in line with human rights standards.

2. Innovations in technology have increased the possibilities for communication and protections of free expression and opinion, enabling anonymity, rapid information-sharing and cross-cultural dialogues. Technological changes have concurrently increased opportunities for State surveillance and interventions into individuals’ private communications.

3. Concerns about national security and criminal activity may justify the exceptional use of communications surveillance technologies. However, national laws regulating what would constitute the necessary, legitimate and proportional State involvement in communications surveillance are often inadequate or non-existent. Inadequate national legal frameworks create a fertile ground for arbitrary and unlawful infringements of the right to privacy in communications and, consequently, also threaten the protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

4. In previous reports (A/HRC/17/27 and A/66/290), the Special Rapporteur has analysed the unprecedented impact of the Internet on expanding the possibilities of individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression. He expressed concerns at the multiple measures taken by States to prevent or restrict the flow of information online, and highlighted the inadequate protection of the right to privacy in the Internet.

5. Building on his previous analysis, the aim of this report is to identify the risks that the new means and modalities of communications surveillance pose to human rights, including the right to privacy and the freedom of opinion and expression.

6. The following terms are used in this report to describe the most common modalities of surveillance of communications:

(a) Communications surveillance: the monitoring, interception, collection, preservation and retention of information that has been communicated, relayed or generated over communications networks;

(b) Communications data: information about an individual’s communications (e-mails, phone calls and text messages sent and received, social networking messages and posts), identity, network accounts, addresses, websites visited, books and other materials read, watched or listened to, searches conducted, resources used, interactions (origins and destinations of communications, people interacted with, friends, family, acquaintances), and times and locations of an individual, including proximity to others);

(c) Internet filtering: automated or manual monitoring of Internet content (including websites, blogs and online media sources, as well as e-mail) to restrict or suppress particular text, images, websites, networks, protocols, services or activities.