Data encryption is crucial to free speech, because it gives the privacy and safety essential in at this time’s digital age, a brand new United Nations report states. It calls on the US Congress to prohibit Washington from requiring corporations to offer “backdoor entry.”

“Encryption and anonymity, separately or together, create a zone of privacy to protect opinion and belief,” says the report written by David Kaye, a special rapporteur within the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The report, which shall be introduced to the UN Human Rights Council in the coming month, comes as many governments try and put “back doors” in encryption programs to help law enforcement agencies.

Kaye speaks out in opposition to such back doors within the report, calling on the US Congress to “prohibit the Government from requiring companies to weaken product security or insert back-door access measures.”

“States ought to avoid all measures that weaken the security that individuals might enjoy on-line, such as backdoors, weak encryption standards and key escrows,” the report states, including that encryption is critical for artists, journalists, whistle blowers, and plenty of others.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Kaye stated back doors “lead to insecurity for everyone, even if intended to be for criminal law enforcement purposes.”

It comes as the United States continues to participate in an ongoing privacy debate, in an effort to balance privacy rights and national security.