The learning curve has accelerated since the government finally authorized internet access on cellphones at the end of 2018. In most countries, the authorities have some powers to access the private data of users, with the prior authorization of a judge, “but the issue is that in Cuba, there is no rule of law,” he added.ĭespite the controls imposed by the communist regime, Cubans have gradually lost their fear and started using social media to contrast information and denounce the situation on the island, anything from the shortage of food to repression by authorities.
“Previously, state entities issued regulations that established methods to save traces of the websites you visited and to check people’s emails.” “This comes to legalize things that, obviously, they have already been doing,” said Norges Rodriguez, a Cuban telecommunications engineer and activist who runs the website YucaByte. The requirement imposes what is known as a “backdoor,” a mechanism by which the government or another actor can access encrypted or confidential information of users of software, apps, and devices such as mobile phones. It also puts in black and white that all telecommunication providers are obliged to cooperate with the authorities’ surveillance over their citizens.ĭecree 35 establishes that all internet, phone, and other telecommunications service providers must guarantee that their hardware and software “provide the facilities required for technical supervision and control, as well as the legal interception of communications by the relevant authorities.” The new legal framework also grants broad powers to the Ministry of Communications, the Armed Forces, and the Ministry of Interior to regulate and control everything concerning telecommunications. Decree 35’s first article says that its principal objective is “to help make the use of telecommunications services an instrument for the defense of the Revolution.” The new legal framework clearly states that the goals are political. So I will continue to publish my opinions from Cuba”. “It’s been 13 years this August since I created this Twitter account. “No repressive regulations are going to make me shut up on social media,” journalist Yoani Sánchez wrote on Twitter. Many Cuban social media users were stunned and indignant after learning of the new legislation. The government is expected to publish additional regulations to clarify.
Although the decrees refer to the fact that these actions entail “legal and criminal” responsibility, they include no details on how they will be punished. The definitions are so broad that they give the government great latitude to decide what constitutes a possible crime.
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