Online safety & content laws in Nauru (2026)

Criminalises illegal access, interception, data and system interference, computer-related forgery/fraud, identity theft, child sexual abuse material online, and solicitation of minors. Access providers are shielded from liability for passively transmitted content; hosting providers must remove illegal content on notice.

Establishes the Nauru Communications Authority (NCA), which can issue take-down notices for prohibited content (indecent, obscene, blasphemous, treasonous, seditious material) and mandates ISP-level filtering to block child pornography.

In 2015 the government directed ISPs including Digicel to block Facebook and pornographic websites, citing child exploitation concerns. Human Rights Watch and civil-society groups wrote an open letter urging restoration of open access, highlighting the absence of a transparent, rights-compliant legal basis for the blocks.

An amendment to the Crimes Act introduced s.244A, which criminalises online statements that 'coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause emotional distress' where likely to threaten national defence, public safety, public order, public morality, or public health — a broadly worded provision raising free-expression concerns.

Nauru has no comprehensive data-protection, privacy, or modern online platform-liability statute. No age-verification requirements for online services exist. The RONLAW official legal database confirms absence of such dedicated instruments as of 2025.

The government's National Digital Transformation Strategy 2025–2030 explicitly targets enactment of data-protection/privacy, updated cybersecurity, and electronic-transactions legislation as priority reforms, supported by a Council of Europe GLACY+ legislative-assistance project — meaning comprehensive online safety rules remain proposed, not yet in force.