The study shows that despite progress in Nepal's digital infrastructure expansion and digital service delivery in 2025, citizens' digital rights and security remain weak.

The ‘State of Digital Rights and Safety in Nepal 2025’ report, released by ‘Digital Rights Nepal’ on Friday, has pointed out that the overall digital transformation has been affected this year due to the rapid but uneven expansion of technology, control-oriented digital regulation, weak data security, loss of information reliability, gender discrimination, growing cyber challenges, and institutional weaknesses. 

The report was released on the occasion of the ‘Digital Rights Summit 2025’ organized in Lalitpur by the ‘Digital Rights Action Group’, a network of organizations working on digital rights and good governance in Nepal. The report states that the lack of effective security and good governance mechanisms along with digital expansion has led to a decrease in public trust in digital transformation.

According to the report, the year 2025 is an important turning point in the field of digital governance and technology in Nepal. Although digital infrastructure and services expanded rapidly this year in Nepal, citizens’ digital rights, privacy, and freedom of expression have been stifled due to control-oriented policies. 

This year, the number of mobile broadband users exceeded 26.8 million and fixed broadband users exceeded 3.1 million. Nepal Telecom expanded 4G LTE services to 744 local levels in all 77 districts. The ‘Citizen App’ and ‘National Identity Card’ were promoted as the main digital public infrastructure to integrate government services.

The National Identity Card has been integrated with banking, voter registration, tax system and the Citizen App to form the backbone of service delivery. ‘The government has allocated a budget of Rs 7.72 billion for the information technology sector,’ the report said. ‘It is being invested in digital infrastructure, data centers, cloud systems and national connectivity improvements, along with its own satellite launch.’ The contribution of the information technology sector to the overall economy is estimated to reach 1.94 percent this year.

While infrastructure is expanding rapidly on the one hand, on the other hand, there is an attempt to curtail civil rights in legal and policy terms in 2025, said Santosh Sigdel, Executive Director of Digital Rights Nepal, while analyzing the report. ‘In documents like the Social Media Bill, Information Technology and Cyber ​​Security Bill, and AI Policy brought by the government, it seems that the idea of ​​control is dominant rather than regulation,’ he said. ‘Rather than making laws and regulating, there is a tendency to govern based on the guidelines issued by the executive.’ 

Sigdel noted that although infrastructure expansion is positive, it is not inclusive. According to him, even though the number of mobile broadband users in Nepal has exceeded 25 million, the fact that only 58 percent of men and 36 percent of women make digital payments highlights the gap in digital inclusion.

The most talked about topic in the digital sector in 2025 was the ban on social media and the Gen-G resistance against it, which was recorded in history. Platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and X were banned by the then KP Sharma Oli government on the grounds that they were not locally listed.

The Gen-G movement that followed demanded the lifting of social media bans along with good governance. 76 people lost their lives during the movement. Eventually, the government withdrew the ban, but after arson and vandalism, the then government was forced to back down. The Gen-Gs made Sushila Karki, who got the most votes in a poll on the Discord app, the head of the interim government. 

The agreement signed between the interim government and the Gen-G group on 10 December includes a clause to protect online freedom of expression and digital rights. This has established digital rights from a theoretical debate as a practical political issue, but its implementation is still challenging, according to Sigdel of Digital Rights. 

Human Rights Commission Commissioner Manoj Dawadi said that digital rights are a part of human rights. Stating that this includes access to technology, content creation and the right to publish it, he believes that social media should be regulated only after adequate consultation and legal process. ‘Laws are needed for regulation,’ he said, ‘necessary consultations, opinions/suggestions should be taken while making laws. Control should not be done by imposing restrictions or guidelines.’ 

Stating that both creative use and misuse of social media have increased, Information Commission Commissioner Durga Bhandari pointed out that ‘digital literacy’ is indispensable among citizens. ‘Although social media initially became a means of entertainment and time pass, it has now become a means of creative work to express political opinions, criticize and spread public awareness,’ she said, ‘However, it is also being misused. Companies operating social media should also be held accountable. Despite the government's efforts to regulate, there were voices raised saying that civil rights were being stifled due to lack of discussion and cooperation with stakeholders.' At the