Myanmar’s Military Struggles to Control the Virtual Battlefield Crisis Group Asia Report N°314, 18 May 2021 Page 11 III. The Erosion of Data Privacy and Online Freedoms under the NLD Alongside the responses to the Arakan Army insurgency, the NLD government oversaw a range of digital and security initiatives that began to undermine data privacy and digital rights for users across the country. In most cases, the government was responding to requests from the military or bureaucrats within the ministry of transport and communications, many of whom are ex-military officers trained in Russia, rather than driving the changes.48 Although these initiatives – such as SIM card registration or cybersecurity laws – are common in other jurisdictions, in Myanmar they were poorly executed, without privacy or human rights safeguards. Nevertheless, the NLD was reluctant to oppose the military for political reasons. The ousted civilian government thus made the task of the post-coup military regime easier by setting in motion policies and laws that the latter could use for repressive purposes. Online freedom of expression declined significantly under the NLD. Broadly worded defamation clauses in several laws were regularly used to jail activists and ordinary internet users alike for online comments, usually on Facebook. Although some of these, such as the 2013 Telecommunications Law, were enacted before it took office, the NLD oversaw the introduction of new legislation that was similarly open to abuse, such as the 2017 Law Protecting the Privacy and Security of Citizens, and made only minor amendments to address issues with older laws.49 One survey by freedom of expression group Athan found that during the first four years of the NLD’s term, more than 1,000 people had been prosecuted for social media posts under a range of laws. 50 More than half of the cases were initiated by the government itself, while others were based on complaints filed by the military, the NLD party and lawmakers. During the NLD’s tenure, many of the ministry of transport and communications’ activities were cloaked in secrecy. In February 2018, the government allocated an emergency budget of almost $5 million to a mysterious Social Media Monitoring Team. An official later said its purpose was to prevent foreign interference rather than to monitor local users, but very little information on the team’s activities has been released since then.51 Similarly, it began work – largely behind closed doors – on a Cyber Security Law, aspects of which would eventually be included in amendments to the Electronic Transactions Law following the 1 February coup (see Section IV.A below).52 48 Crisis Group interviews, digital rights advocate, March 2021. Amendments to the Telecommunications Law enacted in 2017 reduced the penalty for defamation from three to two years’ imprisonment and made it more difficult for a third party to file a complaint. The full text of both laws in Myanmar and English is available on the Free Expression Myanmar website. 50 “Analysis on Freedom of Expression Situation in Four Years under the Current Regime”, Athan, 2 May 2020. 51 “Social media team will not spy on netizens, official says”, Myanmar Times, 23 May 2018. 52 An initial version, written under a World Bank-supported program, was provided to stakeholders in early 2019 but later discarded after the World Bank ended the cooperation. In 2020, the ministry then began working on a new “zero draft” that formed the basis of the version released by the mili49