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All eyes on Cameroon: #KeepItOn during upcoming elections
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How to disconnect a country
LISTEN: “How do you cut the internet for a whole country?”
Last week, Taliban authorities shut down the internet across Afghanistan for 48 hours, leaving around 44 million people in the dark, cut off from each other, their loved ones, and lifelines abroad. Yet there’s still no explanation for the disruption — and it’s far from an isolated incident worldwide, Access Now’s Felicia Anthonio tells the BBC’s What in the World podcast. Tune in via BBC World Service
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Social media content restricted in Afghanistan, Taliban sources confirm
While last week’s country-wide shutdown in Afghanistan was short-lived, the Taliban is reportedly trying another tactic to control information flows: blocking social media. Taliban sources have confirmed restrictions on Facebook, Instagram, and X, once again without explanation. Meanwhile, there are reports of further internet restrictions for private residents in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand. We reiterate our call for Taliban authorities to refrain from any and all rights-violating blocking and disruptions. Read more via BBC News
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Latin America: reining in AI
Regulating AI in Peru: successes and concerns
Peru has now published the regulation for its AI Law. The final text incorporates some of the recommendations Access Now and Hiperderecho made for protecting human rights, but alarming weaknesses remain — most notably when it takes inspiration from the EU’s flawed AI Act. Our new Spanish-language post explains why imposing obligations based on patchwork of regulatory frameworks is a flawed approach that can conflict with the realities of diverse Latin American contexts. Read more via Access Now
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Across Latin America, justice systems are struggling to tackle the rise in AI-enabled crimes, including the use of deepfakes to run financial scams, manipulate elections, and spread non-consensual sexual imagery. But as Access Now’s Franco Giandana Gigena told Rest of World, copy-pasting rules from other regions, as Peru has done with the EU’s AI framework, won’t solve the problem, given that “the language is too abstract and there’s still little grasp of the national and regional challenges — not just to regulate AI but to build a coherent development strategy suited to our context.” Read more via Rest of World
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New light in the spyware shadows
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Last month, a Follow the Money investigation revealed how commercial spyware companies, including Intellexa, Cy4Gate, Verint, and Cognyte, have received millions of euros worth of public funds from EU entities such as the European Defence Fund, as well as from national governments. “It is very concerning that EU bodies and member states’ money may be funding the spyware industry, which is notorious for its lack of transparency and accountability," said Access Now’s Natalia Krapiva. Now, MEPs are demanding answers about why the EU is funding companies “whose technologies have been linked to unlawful surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, and political actors in the EU.” Read more via Recorded Future News
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New research from SMEX, conducted in collaboration with FIND and with support from Access Now, examines how spyware companies such as NSO Group, Cytrox/Intellexa, Cellebrite, and Saito Tech/Candiru, operate across West Asia and North Africa (WANA). The analysis also maps which WANA governments are most frequently implicated in spyware attacks, as part of the first major report cataloging spyware incidents in the region. Read more via SMEX
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Stay safe while speaking out
Opportunities and other highlights
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