"Discard the Sub-Decree on the Establishment of the National Internet Gateway, set to detrimentally impact human rights online in Cambodia", 18 February 2021

We, the undersigned national and international non-governmental organizations and communities, call on the Royal Government of Cambodia (“RGC”) to discard the Sub-Decree on the Establishment of the National Internet Gateway (“NIG Sub-Decree”). This legislative instrument violates Cambodia’s international human rights obligations and its Constitution, by threatening human rights online and offline in Cambodia, particularly the rights to freedom of expression, access to information, and privacy…

The NIG Sub-Decree facilitates monitoring and surveillance of internet activity, empowers the interception and censorship of digital communications, and enables the collection, retention and sharing of personal data, thus fundamentally threatening the rights to privacy, freedom of expression and information…

Our key concerns about the NIG Sub-Decree include:

1. Surveillance – The NIG Sub-Decree seeks to establish an infrastructure that would facilitate broad surveillance of the online activities and personal data of individual users. Vaguely defined parameters throughout the Sub-Decree will enable a system capable of maximum surveillance with minimum oversight, thereby bolstering Cambodia’s already over-bearing surveillance powers in violation of the right to privacy…
2. Censorship – Article 6 of the NIG Sub-Decree empowers the blocking of online connections or content deemed to “affect safety, national revenue, social order, dignity, culture, traditions and customs”…
3. Data privacy - Article 14 of the NIG Sub-Decree poses risks to data protection and data confidentiality, mandating the retention and sharing of personal data. International human rights standards provide that the right to privacy, as enshrined in Article 17 of the ICCPR, includes the right to the protection of personal data,