UN Calls Electronic Surveillance A Threat To Democracy

**Executive summary:** The UN Human Rights Council report warns that expanding state electronic surveillance—including access to stored communications, mass monitoring of mobile devices, use of malicious monitoring tools (e.g., Trojans), metadata collection, and UAV surveillance—poses serious threats to privacy and freedom of expression, and calls for updated legal frameworks, independent oversight, criminalization of illegal surveillance, notification of subjects where appropriate, and stronger protections for communications data.