Press Releases

Press releases

If you would like to arrange an interview with one of our Access Now experts, have a question, or are interested in further information on any of our areas of focus, please contact press [at] accessnow [dot] org.

Ceasefire in Gaza
Freedom of Expression
Freedom of ExpressionPress ReleaseMiddle East & North AfricaEnglish

CPDP must resist pressure to muzzle discussions on Palestine

22 May 2025

Human rights NGOs and academics condemn efforts to muzzle discussion of the genocide in Gaza at the 2025 CPDP conference in Brussels.

Press Release
CPDP must resist pressure to muzzle discussions on Palestine
22 May 2025
CPDP must resist pressure to muzzle discussions on Palestine
Regulating digital platforms
Freedom of Expression
Freedom of ExpressionPress ReleaseLatin AmericaEnglish

Civil society warns of human rights risks in Mexico’s telecom reform

21 May 2025
Press Release
Civil society warns of human rights risks in Mexico’s telecom reform
21 May 2025
Civil society warns of human rights risks in Mexico’s telecom reform
Ghana’s anti-LGBTQ+ bill
Freedom of Expression
Freedom of ExpressionPress ReleaseLatin AmericaSpanish

Organizaciones alertan por riesgos a derechos humanos en reforma de telecomunicaciones en México

21 May 2025
Press Release
Organizaciones alertan por riesgos a derechos humanos en reforma de telecomunicaciones en México
21 May 2025
Organizaciones alertan por riesgos a derechos humanos en reforma de telecomunicaciones en México
keep it on graphic
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAfrica

#KeepItOn in Tanzania: President Suluhu’s government must restore access to X now

21 May 2025

Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition unequivocally condemn the blocking of X in Tanzania that started on May 20, 2025. Technical data recorded by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) measurement community shows that the blocking is underway, impacting several mobile networks.

Press Release
#KeepItOn in Tanzania: President Suluhu’s government must restore access to X now
21 May 2025
#KeepItOn in Tanzania: President Suluhu’s government must restore access to X now
a web of connected eyes on a purple and blue background
Surveillance
SurveillancePress ReleaseEurope

LIBE vote on Europol reform blow to the Commission, but still legitimises an expanding surveillance regime

21 May 2025
Press Release
LIBE vote on Europol reform blow to the Commission, but still legitimises an expanding surveillance regime
21 May 2025
LIBE vote on Europol reform blow to the Commission, but still legitimises an expanding surveillance regime
NSO
Surveillance
SurveillancePress ReleaseEnglish

NSO to pay $168 million in damages to WhatsApp for Pegasus spyware hacking 

6 May 2025
Press Release
NSO to pay $168 million in damages to WhatsApp for Pegasus spyware hacking 
6 May 2025
NSO to pay $168 million in damages to WhatsApp for Pegasus spyware hacking 
elections
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAfricaEnglish

Gabonese authorities must ensure internet access throughout upcoming elections

8 Apr 2025

Authorities in Gabon must ensure unfettered access to the internet throughout the upcoming elections in the country on April 12, 2025.

Press Release
Gabonese authorities must ensure internet access throughout upcoming elections
8 Apr 2025
Gabonese authorities must ensure internet access throughout upcoming elections
elections
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAfricaFrench

Les autorités gabonaises doivent garantir un accès internet libre et sécurisé pendant les élections

8 Apr 2025

Authorities in Gabon must ensure unfettered access to the internet throughout the upcoming elections in the country on April 12, 2025.

Press Release
Les autorités gabonaises doivent garantir un accès internet libre et sécurisé pendant les élections
8 Apr 2025
Les autorités gabonaises doivent garantir un accès internet libre et sécurisé pendant les élections
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAsia PacificHindi

2024 में किये गए रिकॉर्ड तोड़ इंटरनेट शटडाउन: अधिकारों के हनन में एशिया प्रशांत सबसे आगे

23 Feb 2025

एक्सेस नाउ और #KeepItOn गठबंधन की नई रिपोर्ट ने पाया की पिछले नौ सालों के रिकॉर्ड में, 2024 इंटरनेट शटडाउन के लिए सबसे खराब साल रहा।

Press Release
2024 में किये गए रिकॉर्ड तोड़ इंटरनेट शटडाउन: अधिकारों के हनन में एशिया प्रशांत सबसे आगे
23 Feb 2025
2024 में किये गए रिकॉर्ड तोड़ इंटरनेट शटडाउन: अधिकारों के हनन में एशिया प्रशांत सबसे आगे
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAsia Pacific

အင်တာနက်ပိတ်ဆို့မှုများ အဆိုးဆုံးကြုံရသည့်နှစ် – အာရှပစိဖိတ်ဒေသက ၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်အတွက် ရှက်ဖွယ် ကျူးလွန်သူများစာရင်းမှာ ဗိုလ်ဆွဲခဲ့

23 Feb 2025

၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်သည် အင်တာနက်ပိတ်ဆို့မှု အဆိုးရွားဆုံး ဖြစ်သည့်နှစ်​အဖြစ် တရားဝင် မှတ်တမ်းဝင်သွားသည်။ စံတန်ဖိုးတွေလျော့ကျဖောက်ပြန်လာသည့် …

Press Release
အင်တာနက်ပိတ်ဆို့မှုများ အဆိုးဆုံးကြုံရသည့်နှစ် – အာရှပစိဖိတ်ဒေသက ၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်အတွက် ရှက်ဖွယ် ကျူးလွန်သူများစာရင်းမှာ ဗိုလ်ဆွဲခဲ့
23 Feb 2025
အင်တာနက်ပိတ်ဆို့မှုများ အဆိုးဆုံးကြုံရသည့်နှစ် – အာရှပစိဖိတ်ဒေသက ၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်အတွက် ရှက်ဖွယ် ကျူးလွန်သူများစာရင်းမှာ ဗိုလ်ဆွဲခဲ့
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAfrica

The worst year in shutdowns: a blow to democracy and human rights in Africa

23 Feb 2025
Press Release
The worst year in shutdowns: a blow to democracy and human rights in Africa
23 Feb 2025
The worst year in shutdowns: a blow to democracy and human rights in Africa
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAfghanistan

Worst year for internet shutdowns: Asia Pacific tops the 2024 shame list

23 Feb 2025
Press Release
Worst year for internet shutdowns: Asia Pacific tops the 2024 shame list
23 Feb 2025
Worst year for internet shutdowns: Asia Pacific tops the 2024 shame list
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseAlgeria

Digital violence in MENA : impunity and internet shutdowns in 2024

23 Feb 2025

Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition’s new report reveals that 41 shutdowns were imposed in 17 countries across the MENA region in 2024.

Press Release
Digital violence in MENA : impunity and internet shutdowns in 2024
23 Feb 2025
Digital violence in MENA : impunity and internet shutdowns in 2024
elections
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseGlobalChinese (simplified and traditional)

肆無忌憚的加害者,受害的社群:2024年網路封鎖現況

23 Feb 2025

我們正式的宣佈,2024 年是歷史上網路封鎖最嚴重的一年。

Press Release
肆無忌憚的加害者,受害的社群:2024年網路封鎖現況
23 Feb 2025
肆無忌憚的加害者,受害的社群:2024年網路封鎖現況
elections
Internet Shutdowns
Internet ShutdownsPress ReleaseGlobal

Emboldened offenders, endangered communities: internet shutdowns in 2024

23 Feb 2025

It’s official, 2024 was the worst year on record for internet shutdowns.

Press Release
Emboldened offenders, endangered communities: internet shutdowns in 2024
23 Feb 2025
Emboldened offenders, endangered communities: internet shutdowns in 2024
Digital Divide
Digital DividePress ReleaseMiddle East & North Africa

Access Now demands U.S. lift sanctions blocking Syria’s digital recovery

30 Jan 2025

Access Now joins the American Coalition for Syria, and over 160 civil society organizations in urging the U.S. government to expand sanctions relief in Syria.

Press Release
Access Now demands U.S. lift sanctions blocking Syria’s digital recovery
30 Jan 2025
Access Now demands U.S. lift sanctions blocking Syria’s digital recovery

Open letters

GDPR
Data Protection

Access Now to EU: protect rights, make the GDPR enforceable

20 May 2025

Access Now demands action on the proposed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Procedural Regulation, ahead of its final trilogue.

Press Release
Access Now to EU: protect rights, make the GDPR enforceable
20 May 2025
Access Now to EU: protect rights, make the GDPR enforceable
elections
Internet Shutdowns

#KeepItOn: Кремль должен воздержаться от отключений во время национальных праздников и мероприятий

12 May 2025

Ниже подписавшиеся решительно осуждают отключения интернета, введённые российскими властями накануне и во время празднования 80-летия Победы во Второй мировой войне.

Press Release
#KeepItOn: Кремль должен воздержаться от отключений во время национальных праздников и мероприятий
12 May 2025
#KeepItOn: Кремль должен воздержаться от отключений во время национальных праздников и мероприятий
elections
Internet Shutdowns

#KeepItOn: The Kremlin must refrain from imposing internet shutdowns during key national events

12 May 2025

The undersigned human rights organizations call on the UK government to take immediate action to free Alaa, and save his mother’s life.

Press Release
#KeepItOn: The Kremlin must refrain from imposing internet shutdowns during key national events
12 May 2025
#KeepItOn: The Kremlin must refrain from imposing internet shutdowns during key national events
Sweden
Data Protection

Civil society must have a seat at the EU Technology Roadmap table

5 May 2025

All stakeholders need to work together to find long-term solutions to complex societal issues, which are based on scientific evidence, and are respectful of rights.

Press Release
Civil society must have a seat at the EU Technology Roadmap table
5 May 2025
Civil society must have a seat at the EU Technology Roadmap table

Statements

Freedom of expression
Freedom of Expression

Authorities in Jordan must lift ban on news sites

23 May 2025

All stakeholders need to work together to find long-term solutions to complex societal issues, which are based on scientific evidence, and are respectful of rights.

Press Release
Authorities in Jordan must lift ban on news sites
23 May 2025
Authorities in Jordan must lift ban on news sites
Ceasefire in Gaza
Freedom of Expression

CPDP must resist pressure to muzzle discussions on Palestine

22 May 2025

Human rights NGOs and academics condemn efforts to muzzle discussion of the genocide in Gaza at the 2025 CPDP conference in Brussels.

Press Release
CPDP must resist pressure to muzzle discussions on Palestine
22 May 2025
CPDP must resist pressure to muzzle discussions on Palestine
Digital censorship
Content Governance

Access Now statement on digital censorship amid India–Pakistan conflict

9 May 2025

We are alarmed by executive orders issued by the Indian government restricting access to an alarming spectrum of online content, including requiring social media platform X to block access to over 8,000 accounts, including those belonging to journalists, human rights organisations, and independent media outlets.

Press Release
Access Now statement on digital censorship amid India–Pakistan conflict
9 May 2025
Access Now statement on digital censorship amid India–Pakistan conflict
Freedom of Expression

All democratic forces must act for a strong and independent civil society

7 Apr 2025

We call on all democratic forces to oppose disinformation around
the role of civil society organizations to protect the unique role in European
democracy.

Press Release
All democratic forces must act for a strong and independent civil society
7 Apr 2025
All democratic forces must act for a strong and independent civil society
UN Global Digital Compact
Connectivity

Joint statement: five-point plan for an inclusive WSIS+20 review

29 Mar 2025
Press Release
Joint statement: five-point plan for an inclusive WSIS+20 review
29 Mar 2025
Joint statement: five-point plan for an inclusive WSIS+20 review
Ghana’s anti-LGBTQ+ bill
Freedom of Expression

Our rights are at stake: it’s time to reclaim freedom of expression

21 Feb 2025

Given the escalating use of free speech claims as a shield for inciting hatred and violence, it is more urgent than ever to reaffirm what freedom of expression truly stands for.

Press Release
Our rights are at stake: it’s time to reclaim freedom of expression
21 Feb 2025
Our rights are at stake: it’s time to reclaim freedom of expression
AI Action Summit
Artificial Intelligence

AI Action Summit: a missed opportunity for human-rights centered AI governance 

14 Feb 2025

The development of the proposed GDPR Procedural Regulation represents a missed opportunity to address enforcement challenges.

Press Release
AI Action Summit: a missed opportunity for human-rights centered AI governance 
14 Feb 2025
AI Action Summit: a missed opportunity for human-rights centered AI governance 
مشروع قانون الإجراءات الجنائية
Cybersecurity

Privacy under attack: Egypt must reform its draft Criminal Procedure Code

12 Feb 2025

Authorities in Egypt must reject the proposed draft Criminal Procedure Code and develop a new code that aligns with international human rights standards.

Press Release
Privacy under attack: Egypt must reform its draft Criminal Procedure Code
12 Feb 2025
Privacy under attack: Egypt must reform its draft Criminal Procedure Code
مشروع قانون الإجراءات الجنائية
Cybersecurity

انتهاك الخصوصية.. على مصر تعديل مشروع قانون الإجراءات الجنائية

12 Feb 2025

تحث المنظمات الموقعة الحكومة المصرية على ضمان امتثال مشروع قانون الإجراءات الجنائية المقترح مؤخرا لالتزاماتها الدولية في مجال حقوق الإنسان.

Press Release
انتهاك الخصوصية.. على مصر تعديل مشروع قانون الإجراءات الجنائية
12 Feb 2025
انتهاك الخصوصية.. على مصر تعديل مشروع قانون الإجراءات الجنائية
Authorities Gabon #KeepItOn
Internet Shutdowns

#KeepItOn: les autorités doivent rétablir l’accès à Goma et dans toute la RDC

5 Feb 2025

The #KeepItOn coalition urgently demand that authorities in the DRC stop imposing internet shutdowns amid the ongoing conflict.

Press Release
#KeepItOn: les autorités doivent rétablir l’accès à Goma et dans toute la RDC
5 Feb 2025
#KeepItOn: les autorités doivent rétablir l’accès à Goma et dans toute la RDC
Authorities Gabon #KeepItOn
Internet Shutdowns

#KeepItOn: authorities must restore access in Goma and across the DRC

3 Feb 2025

The #KeepItOn coalition urgently demand that authorities in the DRC stop imposing internet shutdowns amid the ongoing conflict.

Press Release
#KeepItOn: authorities must restore access in Goma and across the DRC
3 Feb 2025
#KeepItOn: authorities must restore access in Goma and across the DRC
South Sudan #KeepItOn
Internet Shutdowns

#KeepItOn: authorities must restore access to social media in South Sudan and uphold human rights

24 Jan 2025

The #KeepItOn coalition demands the government of South Sudan put an immediate end to the ongoing social media shutdowns in the country.

Press Release
#KeepItOn: authorities must restore access to social media in South Sudan and uphold human rights
24 Jan 2025
#KeepItOn: authorities must restore access to social media in South Sudan and uphold human rights
a web of connected eyes on a purple and blue background
Freedom of Expression

Two years on, Balgh remains a tool of repression in Iraq

16 Jan 2025

Access Now, along with partner organizations, condemn the Iraqi authorities’ continued use of the Balgh platform to monitor online speech and curtail freedom of expression.

Press Release
Two years on, Balgh remains a tool of repression in Iraq
16 Jan 2025
Two years on, Balgh remains a tool of repression in Iraq
AI Action Summit
Artificial Intelligence

Human rights and justice must be at the heart of the upcoming Commission guidelines on the AI Act implementation

16 Jan 2025

This statement was written by the AI Act civil society and the #ProtectNotSurveil coalitions following the EU Commission consultation on the AI Act.

Press Release
Human rights and justice must be at the heart of the upcoming Commission guidelines on the AI Act implementation
16 Jan 2025
Human rights and justice must be at the heart of the upcoming Commission guidelines on the AI Act implementation
WhatsApp v NSO case
Surveillance

Statement on the historic decision in the WhatsApp v NSO case

13 Jan 2025

Access Now welcomes the ruling in the case of WhatsApp v NSO Group, where the U.S. District Court of Northern California found that NSO violated federal and California state hacking statutes.

Press Release
Statement on the historic decision in the WhatsApp v NSO case
13 Jan 2025
Statement on the historic decision in the WhatsApp v NSO case
UN Global Digital Compact
Transparency

Joint statement: civil society concerns and priorities for Global Digital Compact implementation

13 Dec 2024
Press Release
Joint statement: civil society concerns and priorities for Global Digital Compact implementation
13 Dec 2024
Joint statement: civil society concerns and priorities for Global Digital Compact implementation