What security is provided to access to online information?

United Nations Human Rights Committee
Topic: What security is provided to protect access to online information?
Author: The Arab Republic of Egypt

Honorable presidency, dear delegates,
The delegation of Egypte was delighted to participate in this conference, and wishes for rich discussions, debates and outcomes between the different delegations.

Egypt has long been the cultural and informational centre of the Arab world, and Cairo is the region's largest publishing and broadcasting centre.
The Law in its current state served as legal basis for the general communication cuts during the Egyptian Revolution in January 2011. While this fact alone calls for an urgent review of the legislation, our analysis of the text has also shown that it contains a number of significant flaws from the perspective of international law on freedom of expression. We believe that the adoption of the Egyptian Constitution of 2014 – a major step towards democracy in spite of its shortcomings – has created an opportunity to review existing legislation and to bring it into conformity with constitutional requirements and international standards on human rights.
The purpose of this analysis is to advance recommendations aimed at improving the Law, thereby increasing the protection of fundamental freedoms in Egypt in accordance with the 2014 Constitution and international standards.
The Law has created a legal framework for the regulation of communication networks and services, which aims to secure optimum usage of the frequency spectrum, to guarantee the provision of communication services to all regions of the country, including the remote areas, to safeguard the confidentiality of telecommunications, and to set up a regulatory authority for the sector of communications. While these are laudable goals, it nevertheless appears that the Law fails to sufficiently safeguard fundamental human rights, in particular the right to freedom of expression as well as the right to privacy.