Impact on Internet Freedoms Leading up to the coup d’état, telecommunications service providers such as Ooredoo were ordered by military officials to install spyware in their software infrastructure to allow the military to intercept calls and monitor information (Waring, 2021). It provided the military with the ability to listen in on calls, view text messages and web traffic, and track specific users’ GPS locations (Potkin & Mcpherson, 2021). Since the coup, the military have also used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and drone technology to keep track of protest movements; the neighbouring Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) provided much of the surveillance hardware to the Burmese military’s previously-outdated arsenal (Duncan & Mendelson, 2021). China has become a key ally for the regime by lending their surveillance expertise and technology. From December 2020 onwards, urban areas in Myanmar have witnessed the rollout of the first phase of Huawei’s ‘Safe City’ initiative, a programme that has been widely implemented in neighbouring China. Naypyidaw had 335 Huawei cameras installed as part of the Safe City project, the official reasoning behind the implementation of the project being that it would aid in crime reduction. The integrated software facilitates facial recognition, number plate identification and automatically notifies authorities when it captures individuals on a wanted list. This network of cameras gives the regime a key tool for suppressing any resistance to the coup in the area of Naypyidaw that it covers. There are similar plans for the Safe City initiative to be rolled out in Mandalay and Yangon in late 2021 (Human Rights Watch, 2021). China’s Huawei has also partnered with Burmese and Vietnamese military-owned MyTel to establish 5G infrastructure in the nation. This could possibly further endanger users’ privacy and data amid allegations from U.S officials that through its 5G infrastructure, Huawei has the capability to intercept user data at will. This is the same reason as to why the company has been totally banned from participating in 5G infrastructure projects in nations including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, with many other countries considering their future involvement with Huawei (Bucholz, 2020). Surveillance Partners Vietnamese Military China Huawei The Mytel telecommunication company is partially owned by the Tatmadaw and the Vietamese military, and is an important asset for the junta. Installation of CCTV and acquisition of advanced tools of surveillance such as facial recognition from China has enabled the military to enhance its surveillance capabilities. The partnership between Huawei and Mytel raises concerns about the potential for the military to spy through the 5g network. Due to the post-coup internet shutdowns, protesters have shifted to using SMS messages and offline apps to record government crackdowns on protesters or human rights violations as evidence and for future reports pending internet resumption. However, these acts pose great risks to civil society activists as the data stored in their gadgets could be used for prosecution of law violations when arrested. This is particularly worrying because secret budget documents from 2019 and 2020 show that the previous NLD planned on purchasing $4 million USD worth of sophisticated data extraction and spyware products. It is unknown as to whether those purchase plans were executed, and to what extent non-military members of the NLD were involved in those plans (Potkin & McPherson, 2021). Cutting off the internet also impacted journalists who perform critical reporting, as they could not keep abreast of the latest developments on the ground. Before the shutdown of internet services, journalists were able to be more proactive as they could receive instant information from onlookers or informers close to the incident in question via social media. Since the coup, this regular method has been cut-off. Increased obstacles placed in the path of effective digital journalism have emboldened Tatmadaw attacks on reporters. This has been demonstrated through the way in which military personnel have arbitrarily and aggressively targeted members of the press reporting upon the protests to the coup (Thet Paing & Son, 2021). 0 1 66