BIRN’s latest regional digital rights report documents 152 violations recorded in the first quarter of 2026, highlighting increasing pressure on digital rights across the Western Balkans and Türkiye. The report identifies economic fraud, online harassment, gender-based violence, data breaches and coordinated attacks targeting journalists and civil society as the region’s most pressing digital rights challenges. North Macedonia recorded the highest number of economic fraud cases, while Serbia and Türkiye experienced major data breaches affecting hundreds of thousands of telecom users. In Kosovo, the report highlights a large-scale online gender-based violence case involving the non-consensual sharing of women’s personal data and intimate images, with similar patterns documented in Serbia and Montenegro. On the regulatory front, Türkiye proposed stricter social media restrictions, while Albania’s Constitutional Court overturned the government’s TikTok ban, reaffirming protections for online freedom of expression. Find the report here.
Source: Balkan Insight