We must stand against any government measure that would compromise or weaken encryption. Encryption is critical to protecting a wide swath of information and a vital component of preserving our privacy and freedom.

Why does privacy matter? Often courts and commentators struggle to articulate why privacy is valuable. They see privacy violations as often slight annoyances. But privacy matters a lot more than that. Here are 10 reasons why privacy matters.

Nearly 200 experts, companies and civil society groups from more than 40 countries are asking governments around the world to support strong encryption and reject proposals that would undermine the digital security it provides.

We all need places where we can go to explore without the judgmental eyes of other people being cast upon us, he said. Only in a realm where we are not being watched can we really test the limits of who we want to be. It's really in the private realm where dissent, creativity and personal exploration lie.

A new report from the United Nation's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says digital security and privacy are essential to maintaining freedom of opinion and expression around the world -- and warns that efforts to weaken security tools in some countries may undermine it everywhere.

Hundreds of applications found on the Apple App Store have been removed for using a software development kit that collected personal information from users and sent it to China.

Edward Snowden

The scandal broke in early June 2013 when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. The paper published the secret court order directing telecommunications company Verizon to hand over all its telephone data to the NSA an "ongoing daily basis".

That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that the NSA tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, to track online communication in a surveillance programme known as Prism.